Arrival
by longWriter
Summary: This is the first installment of MON: 2028, followed by Operation: Salvage Earth and Protocol Omega. A crossover, this involves characters from Pokemon and Monster Rancher. A disc containing some of Ken's work as Digimon Emperor gets stolen, threatening
1. Default Chapter

**NOTE**: There is some Christian content…not much, but some.

Chapter 1:

**W**eird, scary circumstances let the cream rise to the top when it comes to judging people's character: it is in the face of adversity that people show whether they are really quitters, cowards, decisive, intelligent, fast, slow, or sheep.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Even though she hadn't touched the water yet, Tina was soaking wet from sweat. And even though none of her teammates thought it was hot outside, she thought it was _blistering_. A lot of the excess warmth that filled her was escaping out her head, thanks to the fact that she had shaved her head for this occasion. But she still felt far too warm. She was dying to dive into that Olympic pool and cool off, but she had to wait until the starting pistol fired. BANG! She dove into the water and was like a torpedo, shooting across the surface with speed that would've surprised even her, had she been paying attention to her distance from the other athletes. BAM! She hit her head on the wall of the pool. _I'm at the other side so soon? Wow, time sure flies,_ she thought to herself. She shot back the other way and began the rest of her laps. She felt a little pain from the bump she had received, but it didn't seem to be a problem. Finally, she was on her last lap. She sprinted the last part with everything she had. She didn't even stop to take a breath, and wasn't very out of breath by the time she was done. But there was a problem: BAM! She hit her head on the wall _again_. In her now fuzzy mind, she wondered, _So…__how did I do?_

But…oh! She had a splitting headache from hitting her head on the pool wall twice! The pain was a little disorienting. Trying to hang on to the side of the pool, she asked her coach, "So how did I…do…? . . . . . . . ." She fell back down into the water and went unconscious.

"Tina! TINA!" The coach yelled.

Another athlete pulled Tina out of the water. "Get an emergency med team over here!" There was a little blood coming out of the wound, and Tina wasn't breathing. The coach checked her pulse…her heart was still beating. The coach began giving her mouth-to-mouth, but it wasn't doing any good…but, then again, Tina's face wasn't getting blue or purple from lack of oxygen. It was a full seven minutes before she was breathing again, and she had just begun to turn purple by that time.

Her family was hysterical. A team of digimon guards had to hold her parents back so that the EM team would have room to work. Finally, they took Tina to the hospital in an ambulance. Her parents were wondering which one of them should go with her. "Yolei, you look as white as a sheet---I think it would destroy you to go."

"Honey, I can't stay here and wonder. I'd rather know for a fact that my daughter is dead than be left here wondering."

"Yolei…"

"She's right," Hawkmon insisted. "If Tina dies, then she'll be devastated either way. If she's with her when she goes, it'll be better once she's over it."

Ken thought it over.

"Honey, we need to decide now."

After a second's hesitation, Ken answered, "Go." Breathing heavily and allowing the stress lines in his forehead to show, he looked up. "God, did I do the right thing? Oh, please don't let Tina die!"

"Are we so certain?"

"Yes. We can say so for a fact."

It was easy to tell how stressed and incredulous the chief was, but he had to admit that the evidence at hand was very persuasive. "Is there any way to stop them without breaking the accord ourselves?"

"I am uncertain, sir. We have all our best political notaries on the task of finding a way to legally circumvent them. I will inform you as soon as they find an answer."

Tina came to with a bandage on her head. She felt absolutely fine, but couldn't figure out why she was in a hospital bed. She looked to her left, and saw her mother. "Mom, what's going on here?"

"TINA!" Yolei dragged her daughter halfway out of the bed and into her arms.

"Mom? …I'm still waiting for an answer to my question!"

"We thought you were going to die!"

"From what? A little bump on my head?"

"You stopped breathing!"

"I did **_what_**? …Well…that was careless of me."

A doctor suddenly walked in. Seeing that Tina was awake, he said, "It's nothing short of a miracle, Mrs. Ichijouji. But she was the right girl in the right place."

"What do you mean?"

"Her blood test came back."

"And?"

"Her hemoglobin levels are five times higher than normal."

"What…does that mean?"

"It means that her blood is different from ours: it can carry five times more oxygen than normal blood can. That's how she was able to live without breathing for seven minutes. Normal people wouldn't be able to make it more than six."

"You're saying I'm a mutant?" Tina asked. "That my blood is weird?"

"That sums it up, miss. And your blood helped you heal from your concussion. I'd say that we'd be able to release you by the end of today. Here's your paperwork, Mrs. Ichijouji. Excuse me."

Tina's head spun, but it didn't spin because she'd hit it a few days ago. "I am a _mutant_?"

Yolei was speechless. "Excuse me…I have to tell your father and the digimon." She hustled out of the room.

Tina rubbed her temples. What was she doing in a hospital? She felt _fine_, other than a little stressed! Considering that an Olympic athlete had nearly bought the farm (or so her mother had told her), she wondered if this wasn't one of the top stories heading the news. She switched on a television set and read the crawlers that translated the French into English for her to read. "The panel of judges moved unanimously to award Tina Ichijouji the gold for swimming, post-mortem if necessary. This is the first medal of any kind that an athlete from the United States has won in twelve years. We have yet to hear about her condition; medics are declining to comment. She is currently in Central Hospital---"

_Wow!_ Tina thought to herself. _I didn't know I was **that** good! _She was left with a great deal of curiosity and a lot to think about.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Thus begins the first chapter of the first volume of a really long, really big series. I think that this might just be the biggest fanfic ever written, period. For MON: 2028, I had to make up more than one new set of creatures _and_ I made a new language, to boot. It'll probably be into the second volume before you get to see any of the language at all. It's a weird language, too: there's direct object-verb agreement and indirect object-verb agreement---_sort of_. You'll have to see the text file on the language yourself to understand what I mean.

So…you like how I started the chapter with a little nugget of wisdom? I plan on having one of those at the beginning of each chapter. I got the idea from the television show _Starship Andromeda._ They started every show with a quote, too. In volume two, there are no quotes; I return to the system in Endgame where each chapter has its own subtitle. I do the same thing in volume three, too.


	2. Arrival 2

Chapter 2:

**O**ftentimes, one looks at a person who has accomplished something great and one wonders, "How did they do this?" The answer is no mystery: for a mortal to harness their full potential, what they need is not a belief that they can do it, but an effective motivator to try their hardest. One effective motivator is fear.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

"Tina!" Yolei whispered. "Time to wake uu-uuup!" Her daughter didn't want to open her eyes. She was exhausted. "We're at the airport! You slept the whole shuttle ride from the hotel to here!"

"Nnngh…" Tina was reluctant to leave the comfortable mind-state of sleep, but she knew that it was time she woke up. She gradually gathered her senses. The first one that came to her was a soft drumming noise on the roof of the van---it was still raining, which meant that it wouldn't be unbearably hot out. Good. Tina opened her eyes glanced out the window. More reporters were out there. "Isn't there a rule in this country that we can keep reporters at bay if the person they want to interview needs medical attention?"

"You need medical attention?"

"Ah---I'm still feeling a little dizzy from the concussion!"

"Sorry, Tina: the doctor gave you a clean bill of health."

"Too bad."

"Hmm…"

Ken was a little sad-looking. But that is normal for a human being: to feel sad after any big event. There was always a way that the event could've gone better, and, even if there wasn't, there isn't something more to look forward to---or, at least, not something as big (Ken _wished_). That plus the fact that days of worrying had left him sapped of his strength made him look a year older than he had looked before the Olympic season had begun.

"Ken?" Yolei asked.

"Hmm?"

"You don't think it's safe to even open the door?"

"Oh…sorry, I'll get it." He hopped to the door and opened it up. The reporters weren't happy not to get any answers, and very nearly refused to let them enter the airport.

Yolei shuddered upon entering the heated building from the cold, wet outdoors. "For the summer Olympics, it sure isn't very warm!"

"No kidding," Ken asked, still a little melancholy.

"What're you two talking about?" Tina asked. "I'm burning up!"

"I find it tough to believe that you're too warm, even _with_ your high-energy blood." Hawkmon thought aloud.

Tina shrugged, tying her raincoat about her waist. "I _do_ feel warm."

"Congratulations, Miss Ichijouji!" The voice was unfamiliar to Tina. She looked up at the man. He wore an impressive suit and had flaming red hair. He could be a reporter…

"Uh…thanks…" she was reluctant to shake this stranger's hand.

"Izzy!" Ken said aloud. The name rung a bell in the back of Tina's mind.

"Hey, Ken!" The two hugged, which was an odd custom. But, then again, the two seemed to be on a first-name basis…

"Izzy! Good to see you again!" Yolei added.

"Hi, Yolei!" Turning to Tina, he continued, "So…I saw your win in the Olympics on TV," Izzy said, looking at Tina. "Just what was going through your head right then?"

"You really want to know?"

"Uh…"

"It was: 'It was worth shaving my head for this!' "

"Oh. Congratulations on the medal, and sorry about the accident! You…want to hear the rumors that are going around?"

"Do I?"

"I've heard that you were almost nominated for a Darwin Award(1)."

Tina shook her head. "Who nominated me?"

"I don't know."

Tina sighed. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead, which she brushed away.

"So, Tina---do you have any plans now that you're the champ?"

"Go home and sleep, mostly."

"Hmm…" Turning to Ken, Izzy said, "I'd love to stay and chat, but my flight leaves in a few minutes, and I need to get in queue. Do you have it?"

"Yes," Ken whispered. He handed "Izzy" a round, flat, golden-colored object, the like of which Tina had never seen. Even stranger, Yolei was looking on at the exchange disapprovingly. In fact, she was looking _very_ harshly at the fact that Ken had handed Izzy the---_thing_.

"Thanks," Izzy said. "This really saved our butts; without some new research, we'd have lost our grant money!"

"I just hope the world's ready for it."

One of Tina's eyebrows went up. "What was that thing?"

"We'll tell you later," Ken insisted in a hushed tone. "Pick up your luggage, and let's get to the terminal, already." Tina sincerely hoped that her father wasn't lying through his teeth about telling her later. She had never seen an object quite like that gold-colored dish-like thing, which made her curiosity grow.

One they were on the plane, Tina found that she had to sit next to a man she didn't know, and that her parents were in the row right in front of her. Digimon had to sit in another area of the plane altogether, so she was separated from Hawkmon and Wormmon, as well.

After half an hour, Tina felt the plane moving. It was on its long trek to the runway, and, finally, it was about to take off. She heard the engines whoosh into a loud overdrive, and felt the plane gradually moving faster and faster. The plane tilted back, and she could tell from the suddenly absent grinding noise of the landing gear that they were off the ground. They had risen and risen, and a pinging noise sounded right before the intercom blared, "This is your captain. Welcome aboard Falcon Airlines, Flight 23567, from Paris to St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A. It is now safe to walk around your cabin and to use electronic equipment. Enjoy your flight."

Tina was about to reach up into the overhead compartment to get a blanket and pillow so that she could get some sleep, but the man next to her said, in a loud voice and with a British accent, "This is BBC. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to This Evening with Larry Smith." Mr. Smith had a cameraman in a seat two aisles in front of them, and was clearly on the plane for an interview with her. "I am currently on an aeroplane with Olympic athlete Tina Ichijouji, who has just won the first medal for the United States in twelve years and survived a freak accident that occurred during the games. Miss Ichijouji, how does it feel to have broken this down streak for your country with such a high, yet nearly deadly achievement?"

Tina pulled the man's hat down over his eyes, entered the bathroom of the airplane, and locked the door behind her. "How tough can it **_be_** for a girl to get some _privacy_!" She wrapped her raincoat around herself, shut the toilet lid, sat down, and tried to get some sleep there.

"Have your notaries found a solution?"

"Yes, sir. There is a provision in the treaty that allows for scientific research."

"But there is nothing more for us to _learn_ from that system!"

"Nothing of _natural _science, but there are other courses of study. We have an anthropologist who wishes to study the interactions between different sentient species on the inhabited world."

"Can he deliver the message?"

"Yes. And we know to where he must deliver it."

"Good."

"However, sir…by treaty, we must inform them of this action."

"Do you think they will suspect us?"

"I hope not, but they may."

(1) The Darwin Award, in case you don't know, is an award that goes to people who die in really stupid ways, the idea being that it was so noble of them to die and remove a few of the "stupid" genes from humanity.


	3. Arrival 3

NOTE: Techno-babble alert after the elevator scene!

Chapter 3:

**E**veryone pretends to be someone they aren't. This may not necessarily be a bad thing.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

The child grimaced at the canister of wax that his parent was holding out to him. "Why must I wear it?"

"This planet has a great deal more water on it than ours, child. Our skins were not built to deal with water; you must cover yourself with this gel so that your skin will be watertight." The child mewed in disgust. Realizing that the child would try to come up with loopholes to avoid covering himself completely, the parent added, "And cover your _entire_ skin with it. If there is a place where you would not like to have the gel, that is probably also a place where you would not enjoy chafing."

"Can't I just stay away from any water I see?"

"No: even the water that is in vapor form in their atmosphere is enough to irritate our skin."

Shocked, the child asked, "How much of this planet is covered with water!"

"Nearly three-fourths of its surface."

The child's head spun as he smeared the gel into his fur. "How can any world have that much water?"

"It is not for us to judge how The Great Artisan made the worlds. Only prepare yourself so that you---you missed a spot.

"Ah…and, there is one final thing." The parent held up a cube-shaped object that the child had never seen before. "You are to hold this in your pocket."

"It will poke me if I put it in my pocket!"

"It may, but we could be searched by a customs officer en route. You will have less chance of being found with it than I. You are to have the cube in your pocket and I will have you in my pocket. If we do meet an officer, I will tell him that you are asleep and you are to act as such."

"Why would a customs officer bother with a scientist like you?"

The parent sighed. "If I tell the officer that you're asleep, he may not search my pocket, and he will hopefully not search your pocket."

"You didn't answer my question: what would a customs patrol be doing, worrying about you, and what is this cube?"

The parent's eyes dilated, which was a sign of his race crying. "I must not tell you, my child."

Biyomon was a natural actor, and she'd been the company mascot for Takenouchi Textile Corporation ever since it had started. But this was not good news: ever since the office building had been built, Biyomon's dressing room had been on floor 9. Now they had moved it to a new place. "Where, did you say?" she asked.

"Floor 11," Sora answered.

"Great. I have to take the elevator some more."

"Why do you hate elevators so much?"

"It's the waiting and the flakiness," Biyomon answered. "Besides, I have a better ay of getting up and down. It's called flying."

"I wouldn't fly out there," Sora said, motioning towards the window. It was raining outside.

"Me either. It's not being wet that I mind so much as the fact that the door boys won't let you back in without toweling off first."

"That would hurt with your feathers, wouldn't it?"

"You're telling me! …And it doesn't do much for my appearance; looking like a dead feather duster isn't fun, either."

Sora giggled. "Your commercial is on in a half-hour. I'd get ready if I were you."

Biyomon gulped. "Here goes," she sighed, pressing the elevator button.

It took a full two minutes of waiting (which _felt _like an hour) before the elevator arrived. When it did, a passenger inside asked, "Going down?"

"Up, actually," Biyomon answered, as politely as she could force herself to appear. As soon as the elevator was away, she pressed the elevator button again, hoping the next elevator would be going up.

It was going up, but there was a problem: a huge, two-story insectoid digimon, Kuwagamon, had crammed himself into the elevator, and there was no more room. "This one's kinda full," he grunted.

"I'll wait for the next one," Biyomon sighed. As soon as the door was shut, Biyomon let out an angry chirp. She banged her head against the elevator button. She waited two minutes, then three, and then her patience ran out. "That's _it_! I'll just take the _stairs_."

"Hold it!" she heard someone behind her shout. "There's an automatic alarm rigged to those stairs! If you open that door, the fire alarms in the building will go off!"

Biyomon let out another angry chirp. "There's only one option left…" Biyomon walked to the window. She muttered to herself, "I'm sick of these rules! If they don't want me drip-drying over the carpets, they shouldn't make it so tough to get up a few floors!" She propped open the window and began flying up to the eleventh floor. "Now _this_ is the way to get up floors! I love the smell of rain in the morning…" She started singing to herself as though she were in the shower, and she might as well have been for how wet she was getting. But there was a problem: it was only possible to open the windows from the inside. That foiled her plans to get to the eleventh floor from the outside.

"Great," Biyomon muttered. She began flying down to the window she had used as a door, and she found two things: first of all, there was a completely empty elevator that was going up, and it was waiting for her. Secondly, someone was about to shut the window.

Biyomon flew at top speed towards the window, and she yelled, "NooooOOOOO!" She was too late: _PAFF!_ She smacked into the window, scared the pants off the guy who had shut it, and began falling towards the ground below. She had enough time to slow her fall and avoid further injury, but now the only way in was through the front door. Not good.

She hoped she'd be able to just walk in anyway, without having to towel off. But this was not her day: the Gotsumon doorman insisted, "I'm sorry miss, but you're going to have to towel off."

"You know that it hurts digimon with feathers to dry off like that!"

"I'm sorry, but we don't allow soaking wet digimon into the building. We don't want mildew in the carpets!"

Biyomon tweeted loudly. "I am the CEO's personal friend! She won't be happy to hear that you forced me to hurt myself!"

"Uh-huh…"

"I have a commercial to do in ten minutes!"

"Then you'd better start drying off!"

Biyomon felt defeated, and decided to try it the doorman's way. She picked up a towel and began rubbing herself off. She only moved the towel in the direction of her feathers, and she ended up making herself look like a seal, having matted down her feathers so much. The seal-look was so five-years-ago, so she fluffed up her feathers a little as she walked away. Unfortunately, there was still rainwater beneath her feathers.

"I'm sorry, miss, but you'll have to come back here and finish the job!"

Biyomon tried to ignore him, but he was savvier than that: he grabbed another towel, tackled her, and dried her off himself. There was a lot of pain involved in this, and the two digimon turned into a rolling ball of rocks, pink feathers, and angry tweets of pain.

Biyomon finally ended up at the door to her dressing room, and she was a wreck: her feathers were totally out of place, her beak was a little bent, and she was breathing heavily. A horrified director's go-fer asked, "What on earth happened to you?"

"You know how they say that rain is good for the skin? It's not true."

"But---_but_---you're on the air in thirty seconds!"

"Believe me, _I'm not_!"

The student Fernson listened closely to the lecture---not for any tidbits of new information about the Digiworld, but for tidbits about what information was kept where in the Jacqueline-Keeves Institute. He was there to make a career for himself, but not in research.

Just to keep himself inconspicuously inconspicuous, he occasionally decided to raise his hand and ask a question. "Professor Izumi, why is it that only data from the older, pre-fiber-optic computers at all affects the Digiworld?"

"Didn't I explain that? It's because it's in the older-style, electric-circuit and magnetic disk storage devices that small magnetic fields would occur, and those fields are what interact with the earth's magnetosphere, and the magnetosphere transforms those smaller fields into matter and energy, and, in more complex ways, the digimon. But the fiber-optic computers and cubic salt data cells don't work that way; they work with light and the weak force in the nucleus of atoms instead of electrical circuits, so they don't interact with the Earth's magnetic field."

The question got Fernson a lot of cold stares. He should know about that; it was basic knowledge in that class. (Scary thought that such big words would be basic anywhere, isn't it?) To avoid looking like a numbskull (and thus, look inconspicuously conspicuous, which was a bit different from what he wanted), Fernson added, "I'm sorry, the wrong question came out. What I meant to ask was 'Can the magnetic fields on Earth alter areas outside the atmosphere of the Digiworld?' "

"The answer to your question is no. The magnetic field can only reflect the data back into the Digiworld's pseudo-dimension within a certain boundary. So, actually, the Digiworld's universe is only about as large as the planet."

"Is it possible for matter to exist outside the planet?"

"No. As far as we can tell, space itself ceases to exist outside the planet's atmosphere, and a few rockets that we have attempted to launch out from the atmosphere have been annihilated when they exited the exosphere."

Hoping that the social issue of "being involved" had been satisfied for the day, Fernson kept his mouth shut for the rest of the lecture. Not a great deal was new or exciting, so he decided to try something else to get information: he'd place an eavesdropping bug on Prof. Izumi's shoulder. That'd get him some information. Hopefully, what he was looking for would be part of what he was about to learn…

After the lecture was done and students had begun to file out of the auditorium, Fernson stepped forward to ask Prof. Izumi another question: "Professor, is it at all possible---let me get that spider off your shoulder---" Fernson quickly slipped the eavesdropping bug on Izzy's shoulder.

"There's a spider on my shoulder?"

"Not anymore. Is it possible that there is matter beyond the spatial boundaries of the Digiworld, but that we cannot access?"

"Not to the best of our knowledge."

"Then why can we see stars from the Digiworld at night?"

"That has to do with the way the Digiworld started: the common theory is that a time anomaly intersected the Earth's magnetic field in prehistoric times. That did two things: it triggered the birth of the pseudo-dimension, and it caused the magnetic field to start absorbing light and heat that was coming into it. The light that you see from the moon and the stars and the sun in the Digiworld is actually the light that it absorbed in prehistory. That light getting absorbed and not making it to Earth caused one of our ice ages, according to the theory."

"I see."

"Since the magnetosphere obviously stopped taking in heat and light at some point, we don't know how long the light will keep coming in, but our best guess is five million years. And, as long as there are computers, I suppose we can program new sources of heat and light for the Digiworld, even if the light and heat from the sky run out."

"Thank you, professor." Fernson turned away and exited the classroom. He thought to himself, _now…all I have to do is listen and wait..._

Fernson's waiting was interrupted: his communications antenna was receiving a broadcast from his colonel: "We have an interesting report, lieutenant. We have heard that an enemy ship is headed for your position. We believe that they aim to jeopardize our mission. You must disable the ship and prevent it from reaching Earth."

Fernson was shocked. This was an unexpected move, but he knew what he had to do…


	4. Arrival 4

Chapter 4:

**I**nfluence can be a terrible thing when you have none and someone else has a great deal.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Fernson's attention was split between two missions: seek-and-destroy any enemy craft, and try to pilfer as much information from the JK Institute as possible. He was intently listening to the eavesdropping bug's transmission. A series of beeps chimed in through the transmission…beeps that sounded like a series of buttons being pushed. They were buttons to a safe, and, from the pitch of the beeps, Fernson could tell what the numeric combination was. He also listened to Prof. Izumi and one of his assistants talking.

"We need to be very careful that we don't let what's on it out of this lab, Tim."

"Why, Professor? What exactly is on this disk?"

"It contains information about how _exactly_ data and computer code can be changed into digimon. It's more than twenty years old, but it's been out of circulation for a while."

"How did you get it?"

"I've promised to tell no one. And there's more than what I just told you on this disk. You need to give me a minute to catalogue the data on it so that I can tell you which directories you need to keep away from."

"It's _that_ secret, Professor?"

"I'm afraid it is."

After a few moments, Izzy continued, "You need to keep out of the directories, 'dmsday', 'dmscode,' and '1LK29'."

"…I understand, professor."

There was a great deal of technical jargon in the rest of the dialogue, deeper than Fernson could understand. He recorded the entire conversation for later study. He decided that this "disc" was worth investigating, and waited until Izzy and his assistant left the laboratory before sneaking in. He looked at the safe, recalled the code, and typed in the combination. The safe opened and there was the "disc". As the name implied, it was flat, thin, and round. It was colored gold, and, whatever it was made of, it reflected his face like a mirror. If it was a data storage device, it was one that he didn't know about and that his robotic body wasn't compatible with. Whatever it was, it was probably an obsolete data storage system that was no longer in use. He'd have to try to find an older computer to figure out what was on the disc. He pocketed the disc, shut the safe, and left the lab.

Tina burst in the door. "Home at _last_!" she cried, carelessly tossing her bags of dirty clothes into the laundry room and falling onto the sofa. The house's computer beeped, "There is one message in memory for Ken Ichijouji."

Ken answered the computer, "Play it."

It was Izzy's voice: "Ken, we have a problem. Call me back in private so I can tell you more."

Yolei shot Ken a dirty look. This got Tina wondering: there was something her parents were hiding from her that had a great deal to do with that flat, round, gold thingamajig that her dad had given "Izzy." "Dad, what _was_ that thing you gave Izzy, anyway?"

"I don't want to discuss it, honey. I need to call Izzy back right away." Ken went into his room and shut the door.

Tina looked at her mom. "What's going on, here?"

"Tina, it's best that you not know. It's more complicated than---"

"Dad promised me he'd tell me."

Yolei wondered… "Did he?"

"He did, Mom. I'm not lying to you; he promised to tell me."

Yolei took that with a grain of salt. "I'll believe it when I hear it from your dad. Go to your room: I have something to discuss with your father."

Tina gaped: as if a family secret wasn't enough malevolence, now she was being punished---and right after she'd been through one of the most stressful times in her life: she was in danger of getting an Olympic medal taken away from her that she'd almost gotten _killed_ winning! The Olympics Committee was considering taking her medal away now that they heard about Tina's special blood. Tina's victory started a huge debate over whether mutants should even be allowed into the Games, and what the definition of a mutant is, etc. etc.

She slowly walked into her room and sat down on her bed. She lay there sulking for a while, until she heard her parents yelling at each other. Her mouth slowly dropped open and tears peeked out of her eyes. She cried into her pillow for a few minutes, and then debated in her head whether or not she should go down and see what was up. She was hearing odd clacking and shuffling noises, and footsteps of both parents going up and down the stairs. She finally could bear the wondering no longer, and she opened the door to her room just in time to see Wormmon and her father, walking out the door with full suitcases.

Tina went pale and collapsed to her knees. Was her father _leaving the family!_

Yolei had been watching Ken leave, so was in plain sight of Tina, and Tina was in plain sight of her. Yolei looked up at Tina, and demanded, "Tina! **_How long were you listening to us!_**"

"Mom---are you and Dad having a divorce?"

That answered Yolei's question: Tina hadn't been listening to them at all. "It's nothing like that. We both love each other and you way too much to do that."

"Do you love me enough to let me know what's _really_ going on?" Tina asked.

Yolei sighed. "It's…it might not really be that bad."

"Then why were you and Dad screaming at each other like that?"

Seeing the tears in her daughter's eyes, she realized that her daughter was scared, even if they weren't getting a divorce. Tina was too curious and too smart to be satisfied without knowing everything. "Honey, it's just that the disc he gave Izzy was stolen, and he and Wormmon have a job getting it back and catching the thief."

"What was it?"

"Honey---Ken told me not to tell you yet."

"_Yet!_ **_YET!_** Mom, I'm old enough to understand what it is!"

"It's not a question of how old you are, honey. The fewer people who know, the better."

"I'm not just _anybody_, Mom! I'm your daughter, and I'm Dad's daughter, too. If he's in danger, I should know about it. I'd rather know _now_ than hear it at his funeral!" Tina paused to sob. "And how do _you_ know if it's so hush-hush, anyways?"

"Honey, I know you're hurt, but---"

"Hurt! _Hurt!_ I'm a lot more than hurt, Mom!" Tina rushed up the stairs and locked herself in the bathroom, and refused to be coaxed out.

This wasn't just about her father being in danger: it was about the family keeping her in the dark. She had a taste for adventure, one that would not be quelled. She hated being left out of an interesting situation, especially a dangerous one.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

You may notice that there are only characters from season two of _Digimon_ in this fic, aside of ones I made up. Well, that'll change in a little while…


	5. Arrival 5

NOTE: There is some Christian content in this chapter.

Chapter 5:

**A**lmost everybody wants something that they don't have: the capitalist system is the most successful that exists as of the time this was written, and it is based on greed and on wanting things for yourself.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Fernson looked over the merchandise. There were two possibilities. A "DVD-ROM" and a "CD-ROM". He didn't have enough space to carry both inconspicuously, and he certainly didn't want to show the disc to the salesman to ask questions. It was bad enough that he knew that he was buying the drive. There was an alternative: he could take them to his dorm one at a time. "I think I'll buy this one, and I'll come back for the other later."

"Why take it later?"

"I'm---buying it as a present for someone, but I want the other one for myself. I don't want her to guess, so…"

The salesman shrugged. "Okay."

After a few hours, Fernson had successfully gotten both drives. He decided to try the DVD-ROM first. He attached it to his body's computer and extracted data from the "disc". It was an interesting compilation, but---oh, _yes_……

**_This_** was a career maker… a _real_ career maker…

Ken and Wormmon strutted into the lab. "Izzy, what happened?"

"The safe computer says that it was accessed with my security pass code at 2:30, Tuesday morning."

"How would anyone know your pass code?"

"I don't know."

Ken pulled a fingerprint kit out of his pocket.

"Isn't using fingerprints to find the theif a little arcane?" Izzy asked.

Wormmon shook his head. "No. Every criminal makes a mistake, and this guy won't be any different."

"See? There are fingerprints here, and they're not yours." Ken got up. "Now, has anyone besides you touched this in the last twenty-four hours?"

Izzy shook his head. "No one but me and the thief."

"My first guess is that this was an inside job, and that there was probably some kind of camera or eavesdropping device involved so that the thief could figure out your code." Ken continued, "I'll take these fingerprints into police records and I'll hope that I can get some answers."

Fernson walked outside his dormitory building. It was raining outside, but he didn't mind: it wasn't _his_ body that was getting drenched; it was his robotic exosuit that was getting wet. He looked up into the sky and sent a transmission to the cloaked Linonian communications satellite: "Colonel, I have a piece of computer data that will prove most useful to us. I am transferring it to you now."

As Fernson was transmitting, he noticed a gamma ray signature in outer space---it was _them_. He made some gamma radiation of his own, which struck the craft. That would disable the craft badly. It wouldn't go anywhere near Earth, and its life support system would be dead within minutes. That was the end of that problem.

Within minutes, the transmission of the disc's contents was complete. He grinned. _Now,_ he thought to himself, _all I must do is wait_…

"Hey, you! Freeze!" he heard a voice yell. It was a man, and he had an APPEP stunner pistol in his hand. Police officers and a Wormmon flanked him. An umbrella-toting Professor was behind them.

"What is this about?" Fernson asked. "If it's about a certain… 'DVD-ROM' …then you may have it back. I'm done with it."

In that light, he couldn't see Ken's facial expression change to a horrified glare. "Who are you with?"

"I don't like the looks of this," the Wormmon suggested. "We should take him in before we question him."

"Go for it, Wormmon!"

"**Wormmon****, digivolve to…Stingmon!**"

Ken looked back at Fernson. "Put your hands on your head, or you'll get it!"

Fernson didn't move at all. He still had the same, evil, satisfied look on his face. Ken shot his APPEP stunner at Fernson. The white beam burned a black spot onto his shirt, but Fernson was otherwise unfazed. "Nice try, officer. My turn!" He stretched out his hand at the congregated humans and digimon, and they all fell asleep and collapsed to the ground.

Deciding he shouldn't stay on the campus, he contacted the satellite again. "Send a pod drone to my position and have it take me out of here. It is time I make my exit."

"Daddy, what's going _on_!"

"We're…we've had a slight change in plans, son."

"Why? What's going to happen!"

"We…you need to get the cube to the humans and digimon."

"Why? What is going on?"

"I need to take you to the escape pod."

"Won't you come along?"

"There is only enough air for one."

"But…what about you?" the father sealed the hatch before he could answer the question. The child thought he knew the answer, though.

The father and the rest of the ship crew held a prayer vigil before the oxygen ran out. "Eternal One, we come to be with You in the next few hours. I cannot be with my son: please be with him for me."

With that, they jettisoned the escape pod.

"Did you think it would end this way?" the anthropologist asked the captain.

"We were afraid it would. But your child is a smart one. If any child can accomplish this mission, he can."

"If we had told him everything, he would have better chances."

"True. But… The Eternal One willing, he will succeed, nonetheless."


	6. Arrival 6

Chapter 6:

**Y**ou never know who you love or how much you love them until you hear that they're in danger.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Hunger finally forced Tina out of the bathroom. Her mother was very disappointed in her, and had sent her to her room without dinner. Tina felt awful, and her stomach hurt from all the hunger. She emptied the water she had drunk from the bathroom faucets into her pillow through her eyes. She looked at her Olympic medal with disgust. She was extremely tempted to throw it out the window, but something restrained her from that. She threw it at her dresser instead, and it landed safely in her sock drawer.

All of a sudden, she heard some shouting downstairs. She disobeyed her mother's command to stay in her room and she walked to the stairs, but only caught a glimpse of something camouflage-colored racing out the front door. She looked out the window and saw a military jeep driving away. She barely heard her mother yell, "I knew Ken shouldn't have given that thing to Izzy! That's what this is about, isn't it!"

_What on earth?_ Tina asked herself. "Hawkmon, what's going on?"

"Those soldiers just took your mother away. I told them that she wasn't going anywhere without an explanation, and they ignored me."

"What! Why would they do this?"

"I don't know," she replied. "The last thing Yolei yelled was 'take care of our daughter!'"

Tina put her hands on her hips. "That's not the last thing that ** I** heard her say. I heard her yell, 'Ken shouldn't have given it to Izzy!' What was she talking about?"

"Look, Tina, you need to trust me," Hawkmon said. "I know what it is, but, if your parents haven't told you---"

"She was talking about that thing Dad give 'Izzy' at the airport, wasn't she?"

"You---you saw?"

"And Dad promised to tell me what it was."

There was a pause. Hawkmon hadn't heard Yolei say that Ken didn't want Tina to hear about the DVD. She stood for a moment, wondering. "Excuse me, Tina---I need to think about this."

Tina felt very hurt that the family was keeping something from her. She was not a little kid anymore; she would be able to handle and understand any truth that was being kept from her. Besides, she had a _drive_ for adventure. (It was her drive for adventure that had brought her to the Olympic Games to begin with.) If there was some family secret in this, she wanted to know. Her resentment---not to mention her fear of her parents' fate---squeezed more than a few tears more out her eyes.

Finally, Hawkmon called her. "I've decided that it's time you knew."

She sat down on the living room couch. "Knew what?"

"It's a long story. It all started when your parents were about your age. If you think they can fight now---"

"What!"

"Your father---you get quite a few 'smart' genes from him. But he didn't always use his intelligence for good…he used it for evil when he was about twelve."

"How?"

"He was a Digidestined, and he knew about the Digital World. He used his computer to make himself into the Digimon Emperor."

"The what?"

"He was an evil Digidestined who took control of digimon's minds and made them do his bidding. He fought the good Digidestined heroes and Yolei was one of the good ones."

"What does that have to do with the soldiers taking Mom away?"

"Ken---he got into some deep research when he was trying to control the Digiworld. He found out how to make a digimon from scratch computer data, and---there was something so awful---"

Tina punched her way through the tears that were pouring onto her soul. With a wavering voice, she demanded, "I'm old enough to handle it. Tell me what's going on."

"For a while---he was working on computer code to a digimon that would have the power to destroy the Digiworld."

Tina's mouth dropped open. "He didn't destroy the datacubes that had that code when he converted and became a good guy?"

"No. The research that went into the Doomsday Digimon took a lot of work---he wanted to give it to science when he thought the world was ready for it."

"But it wasn't a datacube that Dad gave to Izzy, it was some flat round gold-thingamajig."

"Back then, people used discs to store data, not datacubes. That was a DVD disc, and it had Ken's entire research on it---including the complete code to the Doomsday Digimon."

"So why did the soldiers take Mom away if it's Dad who's behind it?"

"They made her take her digivice, so…we're guessing that it has to do with the fact that she's a D3 Digidestined."

"D3?"

"They carried a special type of digivice that let them open digiports through computers into the Digiworld. We're guessing that they were going to make them open up digiports to the Digiworld to get everyone out of there covertly."

"Why? If they need to _evacuate_ the Digiworld, then why not just send everyone by space ferry?"

"It would take too long and be too conspicuous is our guess."

"But---that means that the army---"

"---thinks that the disc has fallen into the wrong hands," Hawkmon finished.

Tina's face went pale. If that disc had a doomsday weapon on it, then that could spell doom for the Digiworld. All her friends had relatives who lived in the Digiworld, and she wouldn't be surprised if some of her friends were vacationing there. She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands: her life had just gotten more dangerous and more complicated than ever---and, if it was true that someone could destroy the Digiworld, then everyone's life might be wrecked, too…or, for some, even ended.


	7. Arrival 7

Chapter 7:

**E**xacerbating circumstances call for exacerbating measures. (Look it up in the dictionary!)

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Kari was exhausted: she knew that this inner-city, American school was where she belonged, but this was definitely a "down" day. Her class had been a great deal rowdier than usual, thanks to the fact that the holographic television system in the school was down, and her short-attention-spanned class had pushed her to the breaking point. But, right when she was about to snap, an army soldier burst into the room. He asked her, in an imperative and formally military tone, "Are you Miss Kari Kamiya, ma'am?"

"Yes, I am," She answered in relief. She was expecting that he was there to help quiet the class, and that the class had gotten rowdy to the point where an armed soldier is required. (**_She_** certainly felt that it was that bad, and she also felt that she owed a big favor to the principal for calling in the military to help.) But, before the children could even mob the soldier to ask him all sorts of questions about his wicked-looking rifle, he was dragging her out of the room along with a few other soldiers, and, all the while, a sergeant was shouting to the soldiers, "GO-GO-GO!"

One of the more wise-guy-type students shook his head and said out loud as he looked at his teacher being dragged away, "I knew this day would come."

To add to the insulting nature of this situation, another one of the kindergarteners got up, ran to the door, and shouted down the hall, "GO-GO-GO!" in the precise same tone that the sergeant had used on his troops seconds ago.

Furthermore, the sergeant added to the child's comment, "You heard the man!"

The child walked back into the classroom with an ear-to-ear smile on his face: "An army drill sergeant just called me a _man_!"

Kari now felt even more kicked-around: the soldiers had handed her the D3 she had used as a child and stuffed her into a military jeep with zero explanation. She didn't know what was going on at all, but it obviously wasn't good. She asked the driver of the jeep, "Could I please get back to my class soon after this? What's going _on_, here?"

"I don't know, myself. All information is given to all personnel---including you---on a need-to-know basis."

"Hey, _I need_ to know!"

"Well, you won't find out from me; they didn't _tell_ me!"

"Are they _ever_ going to tell me?"

The driver shrugged.

Kari leaned back in her seat and sighed.

"Hey, it's a living!" the driver shot back.

_This is no way to live_, Kari thought to herself. She looked out the jeep's windows. She was in a camp that was full of empty tents. The camp was only sparsely populated with a few army personnel, who were carrying around boxes of supplies. The camp was huge, probably capable of housing a few thousand people. Kari was perplexed: what was this camp doing here?

Her situation got worse: when the jeep stopped, a few soldiers rudely grabbed her by the arm and brought her into a tent that was in the middle of the camp. Six of the old-style, electric-circuit computers were set up in the room. Strangely, Davis, Ken, Yolei, Cody, and T.K., some friends of hers from her childhood (not to mention other D3-bearing Digidestined), were also there, and seemed to have been yanked from their homes and daily lives in similar, awful ways.

A lieutenant who had been anxiously pacing the floor looked up at a clerk officer who was with him. He asked, "Is this the last one?"

"It is, sir."

"Good. Miss Kamiya, I think you had better take a seat."

Kari was reluctant to do one thing the army told her to do at this point, but she sat on the couch that was in the middle of the room. What she couldn't figure out was what good a group of Digidestined could do without their digimon: not one of their digimon was with them.

"It's high time you were given an explanation for this." All the Digidestined (except for Yolei and Ken) interrupted him with words of agreement. "You are participating in a covert rescue mission. We have a situation on our hands that _requires_ your assistance." The lieutenant said this as though it was total justification for the army's taking them away from their homes. "You see, someone has stolen---from a scientific institution---a very important piece of data pertaining to the Digiworld. This data is highly destructive, and we believe that it was most likely stolen by a terrorist organization that intends to use it to destroy a single city or group of cities to gain political clout. As science has yet to find a way to open a digi-port without the aid of a D3 digivice, and we cannot quietly use Malomyotismon's permanent digi-port, your job is to remain available 24/7 to open digi-ports in the event that the terrorists choose to attack a city. Now, as we will have zero warning before these attacks, you _will be_ available at all times, and we have provided portable toilets and shower stalls with curtained holes in the sides that you will be able to stick your arm out with your digivice in hand and open up digiports even if you're inside."

Kari's face went pale upon the following realization: there is a great deal more evil in the world than she'd ever thought: there was evil in the army's crime of yanking her out of her life! She would've cooperated with the army if they'd asked _nicely_! And there was evil in what whoever had stolen the data was planning to do with it. There was evil in the suffering that would be caused if the terrorists used the data. And there was evil in the way she had to live for the next while, too: waiting for a disaster that could not be prevented---and one that the government couldn't even warn the people about. She leaned forward and put her face in her hands.

A warm hand patted her on the back. Davis's voice said, "Relax, Kari! It's not going to be that bad! I mean, look at all the videos they've brought us!"

"I'm not a professional couch-potato like you are, Davis!" Kari shot back. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to enjoy this…"

It had been several days since her mother had been yanked out of their home. Tina was trying to get to sleep, but umpteen different things weighed heavily on her mind the way a piano weighs down a lawnmower. That plus the fact that an uncomfortably loud thunderstorm was outside made it impossible to sleep. She had tossed and turned and had already emptied her eyes into her now salty-tasting pillow, but she still couldn't get to sleep. Finally, a little voice inside her head said, "Enough of this! You're a strong girl, and it's time you quit wallowing in self-pity." So she got up and set herself down in front of the house's computer terminal: she was going to wear herself out and get to sleep, one way or another. One way to do this was to play violent, flashy video games that are so bad for your eyes that they need a surgeon general's warning on the title screen.

Just as she was firing the (hopefully) final missile blast at the evil alien boss, she heard a shrill whistle coming from outside. What was that? An animal? A digimon? It stole her attention away from the game just long enough for the alien to blow her character to bits. "Aw, man!" Tina switched off the game and set her attention to outside the house. She heard the whistle again. Whatever it was, it shouldn't be out there! It was a night unfit for man nor beast nor digimon! She dashed to the door and pulled on her boots.

Just as she had snapped the final button of her raincoat and was about to put her rainhat over her stubble-covered scalp, she heard Hawkmon, hands on hips, saying, "Just where do you think you're _going_! To a friend's house! It's far too late for that, young lady, and if your mother knew that I was letting you go out after eleven o'clock and in this weather, I'd never hear the end of it."

"It's nothing like that, Hawkmon; I heard something outside, like an animal or a digimon, or something. All I wanted to do was get it out of the rain."

"I'm sure that's all." Hawkmon refused to believe Tina's story until she heard the loud whistle for herself. Then she fetched an umbrella and a flashlight before going outside to see what it was…


	8. Arrival 8

NOTE: There is hinting on Christian content in this chapter.

Chapter 8:

**T**he words "weird" and "normal" are two of the group of words that have no definite definitions: what's normal to me might be weird to you. (That's more likely to be true than you think.)

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

He'd been cramped in the escape pod for seven days, living off the bad-tasting rations that the pod was stocked with. Even worse, he had no way of washing the wax off himself except to put on more wax to replace the dirty wax.

He looked out the window. His pod was closer to Earth than it had been before. It was over the bluish, reflective, level plains that the child guessed were the water that flooded the surface. "Ooooh! I hope I don't land in the water!" he cried. He could just imagine it: his skeleton being found decades later by a survey team, in the escape pod at the bottom of the ocean. He was torturing himself with thoughts of his own death.

Finally, the pod drew in closer and closer, and he could see the red, burning heat that from the friction of the atmosphere against his pod. He wasn't over the water anymore---not by a long shot; he had passed the water hours ago. But the planet shadowed him from the sun, and he wondered what the planet would be like? Would it be cold? Dark? Or would it be too hot to live in? What kind of creatures populated this world? He shuddered as he wondered what awaited him on the surface.

He kept looking out the window at the ground. He began seeing more and more detail, he could make out squares of different colors, thin, gray lines between the squares, and large clusters of star-like light sources peeking up at him. He could feel the planet's gravity, pulling him away from the window. And, all of a sudden, he realized that he'd have to open the emergency parachutes if he was going to avoid crashing. He slid down the pod's curved wall (which was scalding hot from the friction), and he hopped to the emergency deploy control. He yanked on the handle, and it gave way.

BAM! Gravity seemed to suddenly increase. The child slid away from the controls, but he wasn't injured. The windows were too far away for him to see anything, and the gravity was too strong for him to make it back up to the windows. He was falling and blind, which scared him even more. He felt more and more scared as the walls of the pod cooled to what felt like freezing, and he wondered how cold this world would be. Finally, he felt a thud: the pod had landed. After a few moments, the reality of his situation began to sink in. He felt weird and awful from all the fear and confusion; he was in a situation he'd never found himself in before: he was on a strange, wet planet that he'd never even heard of before his father had told him they'd be going there. He didn't know what to do at first, and was just about paralyzed with fear. But after a while he came to his senses and opened the hatch. He decided that he needed to get rid of the cube his father had given him by giving it to one of the planet's inhabitants---whoever they would be. Hopefully, they'd know what to do with it. And, hopefully, they'd be able to get him a ride back to the homeworld.

As the hatch opened, he felt a rush of chilly air: this planet was a great deal colder than his own. He sniffed the air, and it was a lot more humid than the air on his world. This planet was entirely new to him, and his body wasn't built for it. He felt glad that he had a layer of wax between his skin and the cold, wet air around him.

The child rethought the situation: he knew that his father was dead, and that he was completely alone on this forbidding, cold planet. His escape pod landing hadn't had any problems, which was the only good thing that had happened so far. He ran as quickly as possible to the lights he saw in the distance, hoping that there would be some sort of civilization when he got there. He bounded faster and faster.

This world was extremely strange to him. Huge, brown structures rose high above his head, and he was so curious that he had to stop and look at one---they were larger than the escape pod he had left. The brown structures had strange-looking, puffy, multi-colored tops, flakes of which would occasionally float down. Beneath his feet, the flakes made crunching noises and stuck to his greased feet. He grimaced at how filthy he was becoming from the bits of flake that covered him.

Suddenly, he heard a loud, low booming noise. It sounded a little like a bomb exploding. He turned around. There was no smoke from the bomb, or flame, or radiation that he could see. The only weird thing was that there was something big in the sky, and it was blocking the stars. He had never seen anything like it before; it didn't look like a starship or a military weapon. It didn't even look like it was alive; it seemed as inanimate as a stone, except that it was moving slowly through the sky, drawn by the wind. He stared at it for a few moments, and then he decided that, whether it was a threat to him or not, he really ought to find civilization, so he turned around in the direction he had started in and kept going, hoping that there wouldn't be a problem. There was another boom, and this time, it was accompanied by a crooked streak of light in the sky. "It there a war going on here!" he wondered. "Is that weapons fire?"

He moved faster and faster. He wondered to himself, _Dad said that this was a **very** wet world, and I can smell humidity in the air---but didn't he mention **liquid** water? Where is it?_ He found out quickly: a shower of water fell out of the sky. He was very glad to have a layer of waterproof gel between his sensitive skin and the water: if he got wet, his skin might crack and bleed. He kept hopping, and the lights finally seemed to be getting closer to him. But, to his horror, a creature three times his size was prowling the area. It bared its teeth at him and roared a low, insidious hiss.

Out of paralyzing fear, he curled up into a ball and let out a shrill scream. The monster came towards him and slashed at his back. He squealed again and, de-petrified by the pain, started running again. The monster ran after him. He kept squealing, and, more than once, tripped and fell into a puddle of mud and mixed gritty pebbles with the gel he had on. He was getting scratched from the pebbles as he ran along, and wondered if his skin would ever survive. Finally, the monster wasn't following him, and he stopped to catch his breath. He shuddered from the cold, as the water around him was carrying heat away from his body.

He suddenly felt as though he were being watched, so he looked about. There were two black, round, smooth objects resting on the ground before him, one right beside the other. There seemed to be something above them, so he looked up…and his mouth hinged open in horror: a much larger creature loomed above him, and the two, black objects were its feet. It was colored an unnaturally bright yellow, and looked down at him with white, pearly eyes.

He squealed again and curled up into a ball, shivering pitifully out of sheer fright and cold. He waited for the creature to kill and eat him. "Oh, Eternal One, HELP!" he squealed. Slowly, he felt the water cease to shower over him, but he heard a lot of low, hideous noises from the yellow creature and a second monster that seemed to be next to it. The noises scared him even more, so he didn't move a muscle. "Eternal One, HELP!"

Suddenly, the child got the urge to look up and see just why he wasn't getting rained on. The large, yellow creature was holding another yellow dome over his head. The water didn't penetrate the dome, and the dome kept him dry.

He looked at the giant creature. It was looking straight at him, watching to see what he'd do next. So was the smaller one that had appeared next to it. Suddenly, it occurred to the child: his father said that the inhabitants of this world were larger than he was…could this be one of the inhabitants? Then…what was the smaller one?

Finally, he decided to try an experiment: he very slowly tried to move out from under the dome, to see how the large creature would react. The large creature moved the dome along with him to keep covering him. He slowly moved to the left and to the right, and the larger creature kept covering him. He chewed over in his mind what he was seeing. This monster was compassionate, whatever it was, and might be able to help him with the data cube he was carrying. Maybe **_it_** could take him to the inhabitants of the planet, even if it wasn't one of them. He slowly walked up to it until he was under it. He pulled the cube out of his pocket and held it up to the larger creature. There were some more intimidating, low noises from the two creatures, but, finally, the larger accepted the data cube and picked him up.

"Whoa, Hawkmon! He's greasy!"

"Why would that be?"

"I don't know. But he's covered in petrolatum and he's all dirty! I think he needs a bath." Tina continued to hold her rainhat over the tiny kangaroo as she carried him indoors. She kept on her raincoat as she walked into the bathroom and began filling the bathtub with hot water, as the little guy might splash around in the bathtub, and she didn't care to get petrolatum all over her pajamas. She set him down on the counter as she waited for the tub to fill. The little kangaroo-like creature kept looking from the bathwater to Tina, as if asking what was going on. He began to get the idea when she picked him up and began moving him to the water. He thrashed violently while she dunked him, and, more than once, he let out a shrill squeal. But, finally, Tina succeeded in getting him clean and free of the petrolatum jelly. She rubbed him dry with a towel, and noticed that his condition was awful: he had scratch marks all over his body, and a few of them were the obvious work of a cat. He was also shivering, as though he was still cold, even though she had dried him thoroughly. Tina had immediate pity on this creature. "Aww! Come on," she said, scooping him up.

The kangaroo had no clue what was going on as the large, yellow creature picked him up and carried him out of the chamber. But, even stranger, it took a yellow mass off from itself and ceased to be yellow. It seemed to be wearing clothes! This was strange; it was as if wearing clothes was _second nature_ to this species! To _his_ kind, wearing clothes was awful, and only done when it was absolutely necessary.

The large creature set him down on top of a large, boxy structure that was a little softer than the ground had been. There seemed to be a removable cloth on the boxy structure, the same way that there had been one on the large creature. The large creature tucked him inside the cloth along with itself. The child was very unsure what was expected of him; the large creature made smooth, low cooing noises at him that he couldn't understand. Finally, the temperature inside the blanket grew to an acceptable warmth. He was glad of this, but still…that planet was strange to him, and he wondered how he would ever survive…

The days turned into weeks in the military's camp. Everyone was both bored and on edge. It was more than anyone could bear. Finally Yolei, being the most outgoing of the six, demanded of one of the lieutenants who was in charge, "Look…it's obvious that no attack is coming, and we're sick of sitting around here."

"Speak for yourself, Yolei!" Davis shot back.

"You're not helping, Davis!" Turning back to the lieutenant, she continued, "Can we _please_ go home, now? My husband and I have a daughter and a digimon at our house who are worried to death because we aren't there!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Ichijouji, but intelligence and my superiors disagree with you. We do not believe that a reasonable time has elapsed to safely say that no attack is coming. We know that this is a strain---"

"_Strain!_ This isn't a strain, this is _torture_! Isn't it illegal for you to torture people!"

"---_Please_, Miss. We know that this is a strain, but it is _necessary_ to ensure the safety of the citizens of the Digiworld." Once again, the lieutenant said this in a way that was to make the army's actions seem justified.

Yolei almost started pulling her purple hair out of her head for frustration. Not caring to be around while Yolei was fuming, Davis excused himself to the portable lavatory. Ken held his wife. "Yolei, I'm sorry about all this. I didn't want this to happen either."

"Honey, I can't take one more minute of this."

A soldier, who was manning a monitor station, answered, "You won't need to: get your digivices ready! Here it comes!"

All six Digidestined had their digivices ready and aimed at the computers. "Where to?"

"I dunno!"

"What do you mean, you don't know, corporal?" the lieutenant demanded.

"Sir, there are reports coming in from all over the Digiworld: the doomsday virus digimon are everywhere!"

"Then open digiports to the most populous cities!"

Each Digidestined opened a port to a different city, and into the camp poured digimon and humans of all sizes and backgrounds. The Digidestined had to lurch out of the way to avoid getting trampled to death---except Davis, of course: he was still in the portable toilet. He was just opening the door to the lav to get out when a Tyrannomon slammed into the side of the lav and forced the door shut, hurling Davis back in. Davis decided to learn from that mistake and didn't try to get out of the toilet again until he no longer heard the sound of digimon refugees pouring into the camp. He then slowly peeked out the door and crept out. He joined the other five in staring out at the now full camp. Like them, he was stunned at the number of people who had just been rendered homeless by calamity---it was an unexpectedly large number, too large for the camp to handle as it was. The lieutenant finally said, "There's nothing more you can accomplish here. You may go home, now. We will have vehicles take you back to the airport."

It took a few minutes for Kari to get what the lieutenant had said through her brain, but she finally answered, "That's not necessary for me, I live in the city a few miles away."

"Good to know. We'll have a jeep drop you off at your apartment building."


	9. Arrival 9

Chapter 9:

**C**lout and authority are potent things; if you have them and don't know what you're doing, it spells disaster. If you have them and are skilled at using them, miracles can happen.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

As the jeep carried her away in the dusky twilight, Kari looked back at the scene of the refugee camp. It broke her heart to see thousands of homeless people and digimon. And it wasn't going to get any prettier for them, considering that whatever terrorist group had done this to the Digiworld was still out there.

At least it was going to be warm that night---but it was going to rain the following day, and that would be a problem: the camp was only meant to hold several thousand, but it was overcrowded tenfold, and people were oozing out the gates of the camp because it was so packed. Kari wondered if she could do anything...watching the news that night, she found out that the government was accepting volunteers at a certain phone number, so she wondered…and the camp was so close to the city…she called the principal of the school.

"Miss Kamiya! Are you ready to come back to work tomorrow?"

"Yes, but---I was thinking about an educational experience for my class, maybe even the entire school."

"Oh? What would that be?"

"…Did you hear about what happened on the news?"

"News? What are you talking about?"

"The Digiworld---it's gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?"

"Kaput. Dead. It has ceased to exist. If you don't believe me, turn on the news and see for yourself."

After turning on his holoprojection television set, it was clear from the headmaster's expression that he was stunned. "I have family living there; my son and his wife, and my two grandchildren---"

Kari was gradually being driven to tears. "This is what the army was doing, taking me away from work. I was a Digidestined, and I had the ability to open up digi-ports through some of the older, electric-circuit computers. The military had six computers set up...one for each Digidestined...and they had us living in that tight space with only one port-o-john and one shower between the six of us. And then the sirens went off...and we opened the digi-ports to evacuate the cities---"

"What sort of emergency could annihilate the entire Digiworld?"

"It was a group of Doommon."

"Never heard of it."

"Neither did I. It's an artificial digimon; its only attack is Curtains Down. It reaches up and pulls the barrier that the Digiworld is in down to the ground and destroys everything---I'm sorry…" Kari paused a moment to sob.

Barely avoiding tears himself, the principal said, "How---how many got out in time?"

"A few hundred thousand---out of seventy million."

"And..."

There was a pause, as if to revere the people who had died in the Digiworld's collapse. But Kari, after drying the tears from her eyes, continued, "The educational experience I was talking about was this: we could have a field trip to the refugee camp. There, the students could help out as volunteers and take part in history. Because this will be a historic event."

"Not unlike September Eleven(1)," the principal admitted. "We will---have to get the parent's permission first."

"Of course."

Kari switched off the line and, after a moment's consideration, dialed Gatomon. She was a model for Sora Takenouchi's clothing company, and Kari hoped she would be willing to help.

After explaining her idea and the situation, Kari added, "We'll need adults to watch the children. We don't want them getting into trouble there. I hope that you'll be able to help us with this."

"I'd be happy to do something about this. I can't sit still, either. It's...I don't need to tell you how I feel. That used to be my home, but---" Gatomon paused a moment to shake the urge to cry off her six. Masking a sob with a cough, she continued, "Actually, Sora is planning something with the company for the refugees. I'm not sure what, exactly. But I'd be happy to help and start the volunteer work tomorrow."

"You'd better dress dryly; it's supposed to rain tomorrow."

This made Gatomon begin to reconsider: she hated water in general and rain in specific. But there were more reasons _to_ go than not to, so Gatomon said, "I'll take that poncho I modeled last week. If the static electricity from that thing doesn't kill me, I'll be there."

Kari was barely relieved. "Thanks." Kari switched off the line, changed into her nightclothes, and climbed into bed, saying prayers for the work tomorrow and the camp until then. As she tried to get to sleep, it dawned on her that, last she'd heard, Tai was in the Digiworld. She tried to comfort herself by pointing out that Tai's whereabouts are very often subject to change, but the question of where he was still hung over her head. Her final thought before falling asleep was this: "What's Sora doing with her company, anyway?"

Sora had been looking for a way to get rid of that money for a long time: she had known about Mr. Okatoui's(2) plan to oust her from her position as CEO, and then to use the money that he'd been storing up to work predatory maneuvers and make Takenouchi Textile Corporation into a monopoly. Well, Sora wasn't about to let him do something unethical and illegal: she was going to use that money to do something for this crisis situation. She knew she would probably catch flak for this, but she hoped that the other shareholders would see things her way---or, more to the point: she hoped that the shareholders would see things the way she wanted them to _think_ she saw things. And this action would be legal for her to do: her evil VP had stored the money in the company's name, for some reason, and so she had full access to the money.

"You've all heard the news: the Digiworld is gone. Only seven hundred thousand refugees successfully escaped alive. There is worse news: those seven hundred thousand cannot be accommodated for with the government's present facilities. There are not nearly enough tents or blankets for them, and there is bad weather predicted for the camp's area tomorrow.

She paused for a moment to make herself look like she was touched by these events. (It wasn't a difficult emotion to feign; she actually was very hurt by what had happened.) After drying a few tears from her eyes, she continued, "I know that all of you are thinking that somebody should do something. But _we are somebody_. It has recently come to my attention that we have seven billion dollars in reserve---seven billion dollars that, in the near past, we did not know that we had, but that our accountants assure me were obtained by legitimate means. What I plan to do with the seven billion is this: we will temporarily convert our factories so that they will produce jackets, tents, blankets, raingear, and footwear for the refugees. I intend for this to last only four days. All the production will go to the refugees for those four days, and none of it will go to retailers or to our outlets. The seven billion we have in reserve will keep us going for that long. Are there any questions?" There wasn't one hand raised, and not one person spoke up. She was only met with surprised faces, not the least of with was Mr. Okatoui's. She waited for him to blurt out some kind of objection, be he seemed to be rendered speechless. Before he recovered (but not so soon as would seem conspicuous), she said, "Meeting adjourned, then."

Sora exited the front of the meeting room. Biyomon was behind the stage door. She didn't look as cheerful as a company mascot is supposed to look; she had half-dried tears running down her face. Just as Sora was walking through the door, she said, "Sora, I have an idea about how---"

"Hang on a sec, Biyomon." Sora pulled aside her loyal vice president and said, "Mr. Mankern, I had more than the refugees' welfare driving me to do this with that seven billion."

"M'am?"

"Mr. Okatoui had that money saved up for something special: I know about his plans to take my job as CEO. He also has big plans for TTC, once he's president: he was saving that money so that he could run predatory maneuvers on our competitors and make the company into a monopoly. That's illegal, and if I spend that $7 billion, he won't be able to try that for a while even if he _does_ take my job. I'm killing two birds with one stone, here."

"I get the picture. What's the plan?"

"The plan is this: he's going to lobby for me to change the duration of our charity program to two or three days. What I'm going to do is volunteer _myself_ to work there so that he won't be able to whine to _me_. I can do that; the US government is requesting volunteers. I'm going to get my visa rushed through so that I can go to America and volunteer to do work along with an old friend of mine who's living in America now. While I'm gone, you're in charge, here. If Okatoui comes around your office, you tell him that you're not authorized to cut the project short."

"Will that be a lie?"

"No, it will not. And, if he persists, point out that he should've said something in the shareholder meeting. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good."

"But what about the long run: if he's trying to take your job, then---"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Sora answered.

Biyomon was a little shocked at this display of sheer political astuteness. "Sora---I didn't know you could be so…so…"

"Scheming?" she asked. She sighed and shook her head. "A job like this does that to you."

"…'Shrewd' was the word I was looking for. But Sora, I have another idea: we should also set up donation centers for the refugees in our outlets while we're at it."

"Good idea." She pulled aside a manager and related Biyomon's idea to him.

Biyomon asked, "Should I get to work on a commercial that explains the donation centers thing?"

"The sooner you start, the better."

(1) Whatever you do, don't take this stuff out of context! This isn't intended to have that much to do with September Eleventh...although, you have to admit that, if Earth and the Digiworld had their economies intertwined like I said they did, the destruction of the Digiworld would kill the economy of Earth. So this is a huge disaster, even if you didn't lose a family member in the calamity. ...What am I doing starting with the economy? The death toll is even worse than the economy going bad! So, considering the deaths and economic consequences, it's worse than September Eleven, and it's a wake-up call: it's like saying, "Hello, world. I am evil, and I am quite present in you, and you seem to have forgotten that. Here's your reminder…"

This wasn't meant to be an allegory for September Eleven, or stating a way that we should respond to it. (September Eleven means more to me since I'm an American.) This is just a disaster story about hope triumphing over despair, and, while it is comparable to September Eleven in many ways, this is as far as my comparisons ever come.

(2) I hope "Okatoui" doesn't mean anything special in Japanese. For all I know, it might be a complete prepositional phrase, but it might also be profanity. Worst-case scenario: it's an actual person's name, and, if it is, it's not my intention to offend; I made that name up without hearing it from anyone or anything else.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

I don't know how moviemakers do things in the rest of the world, but, if there's a CEO in one of Hollywood's products, that CEO is usually the bad guy. I don't know why Hollywood demonizes CEOs; they just do. The Hollywood villain-CEO is always in it to make money, any way he can. It's either by cutting down the rain forest, doing a hostile takeover, cheating the tax department, or something else like that, and it's always in the name of the almighty dollar---well, almost always. (This was true even _before_ the Enron scandals; Hollywood doesn't always need something as brusque as a real scandal to get inspiration for a movie.) But here, Sora's a CEO _and _a good guy. And she's not in it to make money; she's in it to _get rid of_ money. Talk about a stark difference! But, being raised on Hollywood's products, I couldn't focus on a corporate executive situation without demonizing someone, so Sora's evil VP got the affront of being evil.

You remember in Chapter 3, where I had that funny scene with Biyomon and the elevators? I got that idea while I was on vacation in South Carolina: we were on the top floor of our hotel, so we had our share of elevator worries. Considering that Biyomon can fly, she might feel a little angry about having to use an elevator.

That reminds me: on the Digimon television show, the artists made the digimon kind of like us. Their body language looked very human to me, and they didn't make animal-like noises, e.g. tweets, barks, or grunts. I change that in MON: 2028. I wanted to make them a little different from us, so I changed the digimon's body language and actions a little to look and seem more animal.


	10. Arrival 10

NOTE: Christian content

Chapter 10:

**W**hen you don't know what to do, it is usually (albeit not always) foolish to do something anyway.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Tina sat on her bed, cradling in her arms the lost, kangaroo-like creature she'd found. He was wrapped up in one of her sweaters. While she spoke, she had her lips pushed forward, and was talking to it the way one would talk to a baby. "Aw you scawwed, widdle guy?"

He whistled back at her.

"I'm scawwed, too. Soldiews took away my mom, and my daddy is gone, too."

He whistled again.

She whispered to him, "Where're your mommy and daddy, huh? Where are they?"

Hawkmon stepped into Tina's room, yawning. "Well, it's not a kangaroo, that's for sure."

"What makes you say that?"

"A kangaroo has a jaw that's built like yours, with a mouth that opens up-and-down. This little one has a mouth that opens left and right."

Tina hadn't noticed that before, but it was true. And his fur was a pale shade of gray, while the fur of kangaroos was usually either brownish-red or dark grey. "Then he's a baby digimon?"

"None that I've seen before," Hawkmon answered. "I looked it up on the encyclopædia we have on our computer. It's not in there."

"So it's a new kind of digimon?"

"I guess so."

"What should we do with him?"

Hawkmon shook her head. "I don't know, Tina…I just don't know. But I know what we should do with you: we should put you to bed. It's after midnight. Now, go to sleep. I shall take care of the little creature."

"His name is Joey, by the way."

"Did you make that up?"

"Yes, I did."

"Hmm… I say! His skin looks as though it's developing some sort of rash."

"Uh-oh. Well, he was covered in petrolatum when we found him." Tina paused to yawn. "Maybe he needs it for his skin, or something."

"I shall see to it that he is treated. Go to sleep."

"I think I'll do that," Tina answered.

Tina awoke to the horrible news: the Digiworld was _gone_. It was on every news station, and the news was all the same: only a few hundred thousand survivors out of 700 million. Tina's face went pale. Before, she had been starving for breakfast, but now her appetite was gone. She had pictured in her mind "the good guys" winning this one; she had pictured a disaster averted and a happy ending…but not this time: good guys are still fallible, mortal creatures. She didn't know what to do: she wanted to go to a friend's house and either cry on someone's shoulder or let someone cry on her shoulder, so she did…much to Hawkmon's chagrin (1), she did. She had about a one-hour chat with her neighbor, and didn't feel much better when she entered the door to her house again. "Hawkmon, tell me this is a nightmare!"

Hawkmon shook her head. "It's real, Tina. But, in future, don't go venturing out on your own!"

"Hawkmon, this is one of the safest neighborhoods in America! That's _why_ Mom and Dad moved here to begin with!"

"I don't care: from now on, you don't go out on your own. Especially not when you've missed breakfast."

Tina rubbed her face. "So…what do we do now?"

"They're holding a prayer vigil at church this afternoon."

"What's the point? How can God be up there if something like this happens?"

"God has His reasons for letting this happen. But there's something else we can do, too: we try to contact your parents. Let's just hope that your mother's cell phone is working." Hawkmon dialed her up. "Yolei?"

"Hawkmon, it's good to hear your voice."

"Mom, is that you?" Tina asked.

"Tina! Are…are you okay?"

"Mom, where are you?"

"We're headed home right now."

"Mom…Hawkmon told me what was going on with the disc. I---I'm…"

"Hawkmon…is this true?" Yolei asked.

"She said that Ken promised to tell her."

"Didn't I tell you not to tell her?"

"No, actually, you didn't."

Tina interrupted, "Mom, what were they doing to you?"

"You heard about the refugee camp?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"We were in the middle of the refugee camp, and they had six electric-circuit computer set up there, all connected to the Internet-1. When we got the message that the doomsday digimon had arrived, we used our D3's to get everyone out of there."

Tina sighed. She was still confused and scared. "What do we do _now_, Mom?"

"I don't know, honey…I don't know."

"Congratulations, lieutenant. The board has given you a promotion for your discovery: you are now Sub-Major."

"Thank you, Colonel."

"There is one other thing: your records show that you have studied military strategy."

"I have, sir."

"Then I believe your career in this campaign shouldn't end here: I'm putting you at the head of the operation."

"…If you see so fit, sir. But, if I am to head the campaign, then I should be briefed."

"Of course. What do you still need to know?"

"First of all, why did we go through all that trouble to annihilate the other world?"

"It is quite simple." The Colonel handed the Sub-Major a holographic screen. "You see these creatures?"

"Yes, sir?"

"They are engineered beings that are similar to the digimon that are native to the other world. They are called ator. However, they are different from the digimon in that they are composed of ternary data instead of binary."

"Of what consequence is this?"

"They are incompatible with the other world and would be destroyed if they tried to enter it."

"I see."

"I believe it is time we moved on to the next segment of our campaign. I will have a report sent to you so as to what _exactly _the next step is."

(1) Look that word up!

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Now you're getting an idea where the new creatures I mentioned before are going to come in. They are called "ator" at first---"ator" being the plural and "tor" being the singular---but, eventually, they get a new nickname. It'll be a while before they get that nickname, so read on to see what it is; I don't want to give away anything about them too soon.


	11. Arrival 11

Chapter 11:

**W**hen you can't trust your situation, make sure you can trust the people close to you: it's not healthy to never trust anyone or anything.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

The job the army had suggested for Kari to do was a strange one: "school fish" patrol. The theory was this: if she and her kindergarten class milled around the camp, and if there were other children in the camp who had no place to go, they might decide to follow the crowd of children. It was an interesting theory, and it seemed work: every time Kari and her class came back to the pediatrics tent, there were a couple more children in the group that was following her than there had been when she and her class set out. Kari always prayed that none of her class would go AWOL, and not one kindergarten student ever was. That was a big relief, but it didn't relieve all of Kari's apprehension: the sky was a single, homogeneous shade of pale gray. You couldn't tell where one cloud ended and the next began. It might start raining at any moment. The army was furiously putting up tents over the heads of the refugees, hoping to get as many as possible up before it began to rain. Everything seemed to run at a fevered speed, and Kari's class's assignment was no exception. Kari promised herself that, if it rained hard at all, she would put her class back on the busses home. But it didn't even start to drizzle until after they had taken their lunch break.

Some time after that, Kari was taking her class through the camp, and she saw a huge Greymon, hunched over in what looked like an uncomfortable position. Filled with curiosity (not to mention hope), Kari approached it and was overjoyed to see that her brother was standing beneath him, along with a family that was using Greymon as shelter from the drizzle.

"Tai!" Kari yelled. The two dove into each other's arms.

"Kari! I…I didn't expect to see you here!" Tai looked up at the class following Kari. "…And I didn't expect that entourage, either."

Kari wiped the tears off her face. "Tai, I've got to get you and Greymon out of here."

"Where would the family staying under him go?"

"Over there," Kari suggested, pointing to a tent the army was just setting up behind them.

Scratching the back of his neck, Tai said, "Right."

Tai followed Kari and her class back to the pediatrics tent. One of Kari's students made this remark: "This is the biggest kid we've picked up yet!"

"Yeah, I wonder how long his parents held him back."

Tai was oblivious to their remarks. He just kept following Kari, hoping that he'd be able to get a ride with Kari to her apartment. (When he wasn't on the road at his diplomat job, he usually stayed either with her or with his parents, anyway.) He had to sit in the pediatrics tent for another two trips before it began to rain even harder and Kari came hurrying back to rush her class into the busses. She walked back to the pediatrics tent to make certain that nobody was being left behind, and found that Tai was still inside.

Tai asked, "Kari, what exactly should I do? Should Agumon and I ride with you back to the school on the bus, or will you drive here and get us?"

"I don't want you staying here any longer than you have to. You're coming back with me on the bus."

Tai fished a mini-umbrella out of his briefcase.

"Where did you get that?"

"When you travel as much as Agumon and I do, you carry an umbrella."

Kari shrugged. Looking over Tai's shoulder, she saw Gatomon, doing some job that involved a similar thing to her own, except that it was digimon she was leading and not human children. "Say, Gatomon? I'm taking the human kindergarteners home. I think you should do the same with your group."

"I was just wondering if I should," Gatomon answered. All of a sudden, Gatomon recognized Kari's companions: "Tai? Agumon?"

"It's us, Gatomon," Agumon answered.

"Good to know _you _two are safe."

"Isn't it, though?" Agumon said with a stretch.

All of a sudden, both of them heard Sora yell, "Hey, what is _that_ thing?"

Tai and Agumon looked up. "Sora?"

Kari scratched the back of her neck. "I forgot to mention that she was coming, too, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." Tai looked up at Sora. "What're you talking about, Sora?"

"Tai?"

"It's me."

"Look up there, what do you make of it?" There was a point of white light, illuminating the clouds above them.

"Well, it's not the sun, that's for sure."

The glow was slowly spreading over the whole sky. The three humans and their digimon stood mesmerized, but only for a while: in a moment, they all blacked out…

Master Moo walked into the chamber. It was full of lost monster's disks, and there were only two monsters that had the power to revive them: himself and the Phoenix. There were rumors that the Phoenix was back, but Moo declined to believe them. But, just as he figured, that annoying team of "heroes" was here to stop him. "Will you never learn?" he asked them.

"You're the one who's about to learn a lesson!" the boy shot back.

_Hmm.__ No, he never does learn_, Moo thought to himself. _Ah, well...a lesson too late for this learner_---

"Firestorm!" That voice was familiar---it **was** the Phoenix!

"NO!" Moo howled as he was consumed in flames. The two monsters were suddenly locked in a draw as the Phoenix swept into the room and locked claws with Moo.

"What do we do now?" Holly asked.

"We get these discs out of here!" Hare yelled back. "If Moo gets a chance to revive them---"

"Right!" the rest of the team agreed. They hurriedly loaded mystery discs into Golem's arms and carried them away from the battle.

"But what about Moo, chi?" Moochi asked. "We have to help the Phoenix!"

Ghenki nodded. "We'll try all our attacks together, and hope for the best."

A familiar, feminine voice said, "Count me and Big Blue in!"

"Pixie?"

"I realize that Moo was using me. He's always talking about hatred this, and spite that... He can use his psychic powers to amplify hate and bend it to his will; that's how he brings monsters under his control. He did that with my hatred for humanity, and if you hadn't brought me out of it…I'd still be working for him. I owe you."

"You don't owe us anything."

"Then I owe Moo a good thrashing," Pixie answered.

"If you hate him while you fight, he can use it against you, too. You have to be totally focused on the battle; you can't think about anything Moo has done to you or to anybody you care for," Tiger insisted.

"I'll do my best." They were about to enter the temple again when a bright light appeared above them and drew them in, along with the lost discs. They lost consciousness just as Pixie wondered out loud, "Moo's...special attack?"

"Ash, he beat you once before!"

"I know, Misty, but I can beat him _this_ time!" This was the second time Ash had decided to confront Gary, his long-time rival, not to mention angina neck-torus. And Gary's cheerleading squad was no better; they all cheered him on like Ash didn't believe, with a "Gary, Gary, he's our hero, he'll show Ash he is a zero!" and Ash, for a brief moment, considered having Brock run interference for him. But that would be just plain sadistic to the girls, so he didn't suggest it.

Tracy whispered to Misty, "I don't think that I've ever seen anybody as conceited as this guy! Not even Ash!"

"That's not the worst part. You should see what the prize is for the winner!"

"Do I want to know?"

"I doubt it..."

Ash shouted across the arena, "All right, how do you want to do this, Gary? How does a two-on-two sound?"

"Sounds fair to me. I choose Arcanine!"

"Fine. I choose Totodile!"

"A water type, huh? Fine. Arcanine, Double Team!"

Totodile looked around himself. He was utterly confused as a multitude of Arcanine seemed to appear.

"That doesn't scare us! Totodile, Rain Dance!" Totodile began dancing, and a spray of water filled the battlefield.

"Aw, great! Arcanine, Take Down, now!"

"Totodile, dodge!" The lizard barely dodged the giant hound's attack. "Now, Water Gun!" Totodile slammed Arcanine with a blast of water, and Arcanine suddenly looked very worn out.

"Arcanine, return!" Gary had a perturbed look on his face. He'd lost to the loser. "All right; this time, I won't be so easy! Gyarados, go!" He threw out a pokéball and a huge, dragon-like water snake filled the arena.

"Time to show him that size doesn't matter! Totodile, return! Pikachu, I choose you!" Pikachu raced into the battle. Rain still fell out of the air from Totodile's Rain Dance, but Pikachu knew how to use the water to his advantage. "Pikachu, Thunderbolt!" Pikachu hurled a bolt of lightning at the Gyarados, and the Gyarados took damage.

"That doesn't scare me! You shouldn't have used Rain Dance before, because it boosts my Gyarados's attack power, too! Gyarados, Hydro Pump!" A spray of water splashed out of Gyarados's mouth at Pikachu.

"Pikachu, dodge with Quick Attack!" Pikachu dodged the spray. "Now, Thunder!" Pikachu filled the arena with lightning, and Gyarados fell to the ground.

Gary's mouth fell open. He'd really lost now. The girls suddenly stopped cheering and started wailing loudly.

"Oh, don't worry, girls! Ash didn't mean it!" Brock insisted.

Misty grabbed him by the ear and dragged him away. "Lose the _machismo_, Brock!"

"So, Gary, willing to admit I'm worth your worry yet?" Ash asked, a conceited look on his face.

Gary sneered. "In a six-pokémon battle, you would've lost to me for sure!"

"Don't bet on it, Gary. Next time."

"Next time, I **_will_** beat you!" Gary spat.

"Sure, you will!" Ash said, incredulously. "Now, remember what we agreed to?" Ash asked.

"Oh, no, you don't!"

"Yes! We agreed that the loser has to grovel at the winner's feet."

"No way!"

"You would've made _me_ do it if _I'd_ lost!"

"Then you admit that there was a chance of you losing?"

"It doesn't matter what chances there were; the fact is that I won. Now, get over here."

"Could I at least wait until the Rain Dance wears off?"

"Oh, come on, Gary! It'll make it all the more dramatic!"

Gary's face turned into a gnash. He'd rather go back on his word than do this. "Forget it!" Gary spat, turning away.

Ash turned to the cheerleaders. "What do you think of your 'hero' now? He doesn't even have the courage to keep his promises!"

That cut Gary to the quick. He spun around and stormed over to Ash's feet. He bent over and kissed each sneaker, both of which were still wet from Totodile's Rain Dance attack. "Now are you happy?"

"No: Eevee has to do the same thing to Pikachu."

Gary's face got all the more red with hate, but he said, "Eevee...go kiss Pikachu's feet...!" But, just as he was about to, a young man in a black sweatshirt dove out of the bushes and grabbed Eevee, trying to stuff him into a sack that was already swollen with stolen pokéballs.

"He's stealing Eevee!" Gary yelled.

"Chikorita, I choose you!" Ash yelled, sending out his grass pokémon. "Stop him with your Vine Whip!"

"Chi-KA!" Chikorita tripped him up and he collapsed on the ground. Eevee popped out of his arms and ran to Gary's side.

"So! You thought you could take my Eevee, did you?" Gary spat. "I'll show you! Rhydon, I choose you!"

The thief snarled at the huge, stone pokémon. "Sneasel, go!" He pulled a pokéball out of his black sweatshirt's pocket and let loose a black, clawed pokémon.

"What's that thing?" Ash asked, slipping his Pokédex out of his pocket.

"Sneasel: a combination Ice and Dark type pokémon. He is known for his sharp claws and sneaky attitude."

"I'll show him! Rhydon, Take Down!" Gary yelled.

"Sneasel, Icy Wind!" A blast of ice flew out of Sneasel's mouth at Rhydon and froze him in a block of ice. "Ha! Rhydon is a ground type. Ground is weak against Ice! Why don't you just give up?"

"Because I still have a few tricks left! Rhydon, Fire Punch!" The huge, stony dinosaur bashed his way out of the ice with a fiery fist. "Now, Rollout!"

As much as Rhydon tried to attack, Sneasel was too quick and dodged every attack. "_Man_! That guy really has that Sneasel trained!"

"Let me try!" Ash insisted. "Cyndaquil, I choose you! Flamethrower, now!" Cyndaquil's attack gave Sneasel such a nasty burn that the thief had to call him back.

"You think you're hot, but you're not!" the thief chanted. "Magneton, go!"

"Magneton, huh?" Ash used his Pokédex.

"Magneton: a combination electric and steel pokémon. It uses a variety of electric attacks and can be dangerous when it uses its Supersonic attack to confuse its opponents."

"Be careful, Cyndaquil!"

"Magneton, Supersonic attack!"

Everyone covered their ears from the horrific noise.

"Cyndaquil, return!"

"Let me handle this guy!" Gary insisted. "Rhydon, Fire Punch it!"

Just as the battle was getting good, the entire assembled company blacked out as a mysterious light blinded them…


	12. Arrival 12

Chapter 12:

**W**hen one is met with an unreasonable circumstance, one has two choices: (A) Think it through and discover why and how it is illogical or (B) panic. Choice (A) tends to have better results, but choice (B) can be more fun to watch. Choose to your preference.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Kari groggily came to and opened her eyes…at least, she _thought_ her eyes were open; it was impossible to tell because it was so pitch dark.

Everything seemed so strange…if this was a refugee camp, then shouldn't there be a lot of noise, even in the dead of night? And what _happened_, anyway? Why did she black out, and, if it was the middle of the night, shouldn't she be hungry?

She felt strangely warm and realized that she had on about twice the necessary amount of clothes. The denim dress she was wearing was too long for her, so she tried for about five minutes to take it off. During those five minutes, her mind wandered to find reasonable explanations for everything that was going on. Maybe there was just a power failure in the camp, and that's why there are no lights here. And there's no light coming from the sky because it's still raining. Kari could even hear the rain falling outside the tent. And she was wearing too many clothes because---well, the only thing that came to Kari's mind was that the soldier's morale was so low that their evil sergeant had given them permission to pull a prank on her and stuff her into a huge denim dress that had somehow gotten in the orders along with the rest of what TTC was shipping.

"Hello?" Kari yelled. "Anybody?"

There was a grunt beside her. "What is it?" a boy's voice answered. It was apparent from his tone that he had also just woken up. The voice sounded familiar, but Kari couldn't place it.

"Uh…would you happen to know where the emergency flashlights are?"

"No, I don't. But---hey, how come I'm wearing a suit that's too big for me _on top_ of a t-shirt and shorts?"

"My guess is the soldiers pulled a prank on us and put these clothes on us."

"Sounds right," he answered.

"By the way, what's your name?"

"Tai. Why do you ask?"

"---well, it's a weird coincidence that I have a brother named Tai."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

There was a short pause while Tai took off the sport jacket and suit pants that the army had so rudely put on him. "Man, isn't there _any_ light in here?"

"None that I can see."

There was a low noise coming from behind them, like a movie running is slow-motion. "What was that?" Kari asked.

After a moment, there was a loud shuffling noise. "Hello?"

"Gatomon, is that you?" Kari asked.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Good to hear your voice, Gatomon," Tai answered.

"Hang on, you know Gatomon?"

"Yeah, she's my sister's partner digimon."

"Gatomon is _my_ digimon; there's no way that you're my brother! He's more than forty years old!"

"Last I checked I _was_ over forty years old! And I don't think you can be my sister Kari; she was edging on forty, herself!"

"Hey, easy on the age-calling!"

"Oh, come _on_! You're not Kari, and she _was_ edging on forty!"

Gatomon spat, "Knock it off, _both_ of you!" She began murmuring to herself, "Now, how on Earth does this thing work? Where's the switch?"

"What've you got?"

"I have a flashlight, but I can't find the switch on it to turn it on."

"Maybe it's one of those flashlights you twist to turn on," Tai suggested.

"I'll try that."

Kari and Tai were blinded as the light glared in their eyes. When their eyes adjusted, they saw Gatomon. She was wearing a wet, pastel-pink poncho whose hood obscured most of her face, but they could tell that she was looking at them with her mouth wide open. They looked at each other, and they saw why Gatomon was so surprised…

Tina was in that state between asleep and awake that comes just before one wakes up in the morning. She was getting closer and closer to consciousness, and a few cognitive thoughts were entering her head. One of these thoughts was about how disgusted she was that her hair hadn't grown back yet. Her hair was long, silky, jet-black, and beautiful. When she had won her medal, she felt that it had been worth it to shave it off. But now, since it looked as though she was going to lose her medal to a debate in the Olympic Committee, it didn't seem to worth her while to have shaved her hair off. And her hair was so slow in growing back; she _still_ had only stubble at this point.

Finally, she decided, _Oh, I'd better get up, already!_ Her head felt a bit heavier than she had been used to, but that was probably because of the fact that she was so groggy from having just gotten up. She walked into the bathroom and switched on the light. She was blinded for the first few moments from the sudden light, but her eyes finally adjusted. She looked up at the mirror, and was in for a shock: overnight, her hair had grown back completely. Her mouth dropped open. She had no clue why her hair would grow back so quickly. She was completely confused. She was grateful for an actually good surprise, and began brushing her hair immediately.

She changed out of her pajamas and into her normal clothes, and sat down at the breakfast table. Hawkmon was in the kitchen, making breakfast.

"Tina, I hope you don't mind waiting. Somehow, I got up after you did, and I'm a bit slow this morning."

"It's okay, Hawkmon---say, shouldn't it be light out by now? It's summer, and it's 7:30, so shouldn't the sun be up?"

"Yes, that is strange. But I---" Hawkmon's sentence trailed off as she saw that Tina was looking at her with her mouth wide open. "What is it, Tina?"

"Hawkmon, your feather!"

"Which one?"

"The big one on top of your head!"

Hawkmon looked at her reflection in the spoon she was holding. Instead of the single feather standing up on the back of her head like a Native American, she had a long crest on her head, like a cockatoo. "Your hair is no stranger! Isn't it a few months early in growing back?"

Tina put her face in her hands. "All right, _enough_ weird stuff for one day, already!"

Suddenly and unexpectedly, the doorbell rang. "Huh? Who would that be at this time of the morning?" Hawkmon asked.

"Oh, I'll get it," Tina murmured. Tina found out suddenly that she _hadn't_ had enough weird stuff happen to her in one day (and it was only 7:30 in the morning!)…


	13. Arrival 13

Chapter 13:

**G**enerally, it's new situations that scare people. People are rarely afraid of familiar situations, but when they are, it's a pretty good indication that there's a _real_ problem.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Tina gaped: she was looking into the face of a girl who looked a great deal like what she'd seen in the mirror a few minutes ago. Although there was an _unbelievably_ strong resemblance to herself in the face and the glasses, there were quite a few differences: first of all, this girl's hair was dyed purple, and her clothes were different. Tina couldn't recall a time in the planet Earth's history when what this girl was wearing was in style: she was wearing a strange, orange helmet, green boots, red pants, and had a green backpack on that made her look like a girl scout.

"Who on Earth are _you_!" Tina asked.

"Tina, you're all right!" The girl lurched into Tina's arms, scaring the daylights out of her. Furthermore, the girl's voice sounded quite a bit like Tina's.

"Hey, you'd better tell me who you are or I'm calling the police!"

The new girl seemed to be taken aback: "Tina, I'm…don't you _recognize_ me?"

"No…what _are_ you, my long-lost cousin, or something?"

"Tina, I'm your _mother_!"

At this, an amber-colored light went off on the traffic signal in Tina's brain. "You _freak_!" Tina spat.

Hearing this, Hawkmon hopped over to the foyer and looked at the new girl. "Yolei! It's…it's not possible!"

"Hawkmon, don't _you_ recognize me!"

"I recognize you, but it's just plain _not possible_ for you to be Yolei! Last I saw her, she was nearly forty years old!"

"I _am_ Yolei! And this is Ken!" Yolei shoved Ken out from behind her. For whatever reason, he was wearing his digimon emperor outfit. He had the same cape, the same black gloves, and the same glasses as before. His hairstyle wasn't as unkempt as he had worn his hair before, however: his hair was the same long, smooth texture as it had been while he was a Digidestined. Behind him was Wormmon, and he looked exactly like the Wormmon she'd known for all her life.

Yolei continued, "And this is Davis!" she yanked forward a boy who was wearing a flame-pattern leather jacket, khaki shorts, goggles, and orange high-top shoes. Behind him was Veemon, but not as she remembered Veemon: this time, he had a metal helmet with a yellow crest on top of the helmet. Whatever was going on, it was very strange. Yolei begged, "Tina, something happened that changed us into kids again!"

Tina licked her lips. This was the kind of thing that scared her, but, now that she took a second look at that fear, she realized that she was almost…_enjoying _the fear. And she had an odd urge to conquer her fear…

"How can we be sure what you're saying is true?" Hawkmon demanded.

"Hold the phone here, Hawkmon!" Tina insisted. "Let's think this over. My hair grows back about a hundred times faster than it's supposed to overnight. You wake up later than I do, which has _never_ happened before. It's pitch dark out at 7:30 in the morning in the summer. Then my parents show up and they're about thirty years younger than they're supposed to be."

"What're you driving at?" Hawkmon asked.

Tina took her watch off her wrist. "Hawkmon, what's today's date?"

"Let's see…yesterday was the twenty-fifth, so today would be the twenty-sixth."

"Of August?"

"Yes."

"Well, look what my wristwatch says!" Tina held up her watch, and it said that it was the fourth of April.

"More strangeness, but what makes you think it's connected?"

"Well, isn't it obvious? Something messed up time!"

"Is she dead?" Holly asked.

"Doesn't look like it," Ghenki answered. "She's still breathing."

"Then why doesn't she answer us, Chi?" Moochi asked.

"I don't know. It looks like she's fainted."

"You think we should wake her up?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it safe to leave her in the middle of the road," Hare answered. He gently shook her shoulder. "Hello? Miss, can you hear us?"

A white, egg-like thing that the unconscious girl had been clutching in her arms began to wiggle. It seemed to have a face and arms and legs…what was it? It looked at Moochi and asked, "Tuck-ee?"

"Chi?" Moochi answered.

The egg-like creature walked up to Moochi and looked up at Moochi's face. It repeated, "Tuck-ee-tuck-ee?"

"What are you?"

"Tuck-ee-pee!"

"Tuckipi?"

"I think it said 'Togepi'," Holly answered.

"You're Togepi? Can't you say anything besides your own name?" Ghenki answered.

"Tuck…_ee_?" Togepi answered.

"Must be a baby," Holly whispered.

"You'd think the girl would know something about him," Hare commented. "What should we do with her?" Hare wondered.

"Good question. You think we should take her with us? Maybe we can find a safe place to leave her until she comes to."

"It's worth a try."

Taking the hint, Golem picked her up. The feel of cold stone against her bare skin was enough to wake Misty up with a start. "Sorry to startle you," Golem sheepishly said, scratching the back of his neck. It was apparent from Misty's expression that she was terrified to see a monster made of stone towering above her. "Say, miss, are you okay? You look a little pale…"

"I'm…just…fine…thank…you…!"

Ghenki held up Togepi to her. "We found you unconscious in the middle of the street with this guy in your arms. Is he yours?"

As she grabbed Togepi, Misty's tone of voice suddenly became much faster: "Oh,yeshe'smine, thankyouforgettinghim!"

"You're sure you're okay?" Hare asked.

Looking at him, twice as terrified, Misty answered, "Just fine, thank you!"

"Why are you afraid of Golem and Hare?" Ghenki asked. "Do you think that we're bandits, or something?"

"That…wasn't…_actually_ what I was afraid of, no."

"Then what's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a Monster in your life besides Togepi?"

"Monster? What're you talking about?"

"Isn't Togepi a Monster?"

"Togepi is a pokémon!"

"A _what_?"

"A pokémon! You can't tell me you don't know what a pokémon is!"

"Uh…do you know what a Monster is?"

"A Monster? Sure, it's one of those imaginary things that kids think hide under their bed."

Hare whispered to Moochi, "Is she completely out of it or did she just insult us?"

Moochi shrugged. "Chi?"

Ghenki thought this over: if she didn't know what a Monster was, then there was a good chance that he was no longer on the Monster Planet. He was tempted to jump up and do one of his triumph screams that he was home, but then it occurred to him that he didn't recall anything called a "pokémon" on Earth, either, so this might not be Earth. "Uh…that's not what a Monster is at all. I think you'd better sit down…"

Tina was a lot more eager to accept that her mother had been turned into a child than Hawkmon. Only after Wormmon (who had gone with Ken to Japan and came back with him from the refugee camp in Montana) assured her that it was true did she begin to accept it. "But what on Earth could destroy time like that?"

"It could have…something to do with the Digiworld's being destroyed," Ken suggested. He put one hand over his eyes as he said this. It was clear he felt guilty for having created Doommon and for having given him up to the Jacqueline-Keeves institute.

Davis, with his eyes fixed to the holographic television set, patted Ken on the back and said, "It's okay, man! How many times do I need to tell you that it's not your fault that this happened?"

"Who made the monster?"

"Who pulled the trigger? I don't think it was you, Ken."

Tina sat on the sofa next to her dad and wrapped her warm arms around him. She whispered into his ear, "Relax, Daddy. I know we'll get through this."

"Honey, you don't understand, I---"

"I _do_ understand, Dad. I talked Hawkmon into telling me everything."

"…We'll be eating her for dinner tonight, stuffed and with sage and rosemary."

"Dad…I'm not a little kid anymore. I can understand all this."

"Tina---I don't want you to live knowing that your father brought down the Digiworld."

"Dad, you didn't bring down the Digiworld. You might have made that program so that you could, but it wasn't you who used it, and it was even being used for good and _not evil_ when it was stolen. …Do you know who stole it?"

"Yes, and we caught him red-handed."

"Then where is he now? In jail?"

"No, he got away. My APPEP stun gun didn't even faze him."

"Then---who was he and who was he with?"

"I don't know. Just let me be alone, honey, I---I need some time alone." Ken got up and began moving very quickly towards his bedroom.

"Daddy…?" Tina's facial expression shifted from sorrowfully compassionate to disciplining. She shouted after him, "Dad, it's not your fault whether you think it was or not. Just _ **know**_ that…_please_."

Tina looked back at Davis, who was still sitting on the couch, with his eyes still fixed to the TV set, his face _still_ seemed to suggest that no brain existed behind his blank expression. "Davis, how can you think about watching TV at a time like this?"

"I'm not _thinking_ about watching TV, I'm just watching. I _always_ watch TV." Not once had Davis's facial expression changed, nor had he taken his eyes off the picture.

"How can you watch TV and have a conversation with me at the same time?"

"I'm a genius, you see. My attention can be split between two things at the same time. That's why I was so good at fighting while I was a Digidestined."

"You are _not_ a genius, Davis. There is _just no way_."

Rika dashed out the door, barely pulling her khaki jacket over her shoulders. The threatening clouds overhead didn't shadow her enthusiasm at all. There was a digital field to destroy, and she was just the tamer to do it.

"Rika, for crying out loud, wear more than that! You'll get double pneumonia if it's going to rain!" her mother called after her. She didn't listen, being conceited and hard as she was. She thought to herself, _I'm not scared of a little rain!_

Renamon was leaping from tree to tree overhead, unseen to anyone who passed the two by. "You think this'll be anything worse than champion, Rika?" Renamon asked.

"We'll be able to handle it even if it is."

There was no conversation for the next few moments as the two sped to the digital field in the park. But Rika's attention was broken as Renamon yelled down to her, "We've got company! Takato and Henry."

"Have they seen us?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. I want this digimon's data, whoever it is, and I _don't_ want them to take it from me! ---I mean, _us_."

"Of course."

Rain slowly began to sprinkle out of the sky, which Rika ignored. "I know how we can beat them to the punch," Rika thought aloud. She pulled a modifier card out of her pocket and swept it through her digivice. "**Digi****-modify: hypersonic, activate!**"

Renamon shot forwards into the digital field, but was knocked back by a powerful blast: "Dark Network!"

"What!" Rika held up her digivice for a reading on the digimon inside. "Oh, great! Etemon! He's an ultimate. This will be a little harder than I'd hoped, but his data will be worth the fight!"

"Time we did our thing!" Takato shouted. Guilmon jumped forward and shot a fireball at Etemon.

Etemon batted it away like it was nothing. "What was that supposed to be? A _joke_!"

"I'll show _you_ who's the jokester around here!" Takato shot back. "**Digi****-modify: hypersonic, activate!**"

"Takato, he's an ultimate!" Henry insisted. "Guilmon has to digivolve before he has a _hope_ of taking him!"

"He won't have one anyways! Dark Network!" Unfortunately for Etemon, Guilmon was too fast to be hit.

"Now, get him, Guilmon!"

Guilmon slashed at Etemon with his claws, but to no avail. Takato saw how the fight was going, and that Henry had been right. "**Digi****-modify: Digivolution, activate!**"

"**Guilmon****, digivolve to…Growlmon!**" He wound up for his attack: "Pyroblaster!" he shouted, blowing a stream of flame at Etemon.

Etemon was hurt, but not badly. As he got up, lightning flashed, as if to accent how evil he was. "You kids don't have a chance of beating me!"

Renamon got up and dusted herself off. "I'll take this one! Diamond Storm!"

"Dark Network!" Etemon shouted, hurling a ball of energy right back at the sharp bits of glass that were flying his way. He cancelled the attack, and sent Renamon backwards.

"Renamon!" Rika dashed to her fallen friend. Renamon was completely unconscious, but, judging from the fact that she hadn't burst into data fragments, she was still alive---albeit barely.

"You're nothin' but a conceited brat, you!" Etemon spat. "I'll show you who's the real deal, here! Dark Network!" He fired a blast to finish her off, but Growlmon jumped in the way.

"Pyroblaster!" he fired, canceling the attack.

"Time we finished this guy!" Takato yelled. "**Digi****-modify: upgrade, activate!**"

Growlmon felt his firepower increase. "Pyroblaster!" he yelled as he ran towards Etemon. The concentrated flame was too much for Etemon to take, and he burst into data fragments.

Growlmon regressed back to Guilmon, and joined Takato and Henry who were moving towards Rika. Rika was still trying to see if Renamon was okay, and it was apparent that she wasn't. Henry held his umbrella over the pair, only to get a loud, "I don't _want_ your help!" from Rika.

"Rika, we don't want Renamon to die any more than you do. You might _need_ our help to get her out of here in one piece!"

"**_Would you leave me alone!_**" Rika spat. She felt like she was going to cry, and she didn't want anyone to see her cry---especially those two. Just as she felt the tears leaking out, she saw a bright light. She wondered, _What__ on earth is that? Is that Renamon disintegrating?_ She felt herself fainting…_Could it be that I've just been hit by lightning?_


	14. Arrival 14

Chapter 14:

**I**t's been said that nobody can take an experience away from you, but whoever said it knew very little about time travel. (Then again, I don't know so much, myself.)

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Kari and Tai were both scared and almost refused to believe what their eyes told them: they had both become children again, and each of them was around twelve or thirteen years old. "Tai…tell me it's not you," Kari said.

"I wish I could, sis…"

Gatomon was speechless. It took her a few moments to gather herself and say, "_HOW!_"

"Gatomon, we don't know any more than you about this."

Gatomon's paw had apparently fallen in the mud when she blacked out, as it was covered in dirt. She gradually slid her green poncho off herself so that she'd have an easier time wiping herself off. Kari looked over at Gatomon, in the hopes that she might have some kind of reassurance. She didn't: as she slid her poncho off, it was revealed that her fur, which had been plain white, now had black tiger-stripes. Gatomon began to look pale and as though she was about to faint. Kari ran over and picked Gatomon up. "Gatomon…it's okay. All three of us are scared."

Gatomon, still almost speechless, asked, "Kari, what is going on, here?"

"I don't know," she answered. "But we really have two choices: we can sit here and be scared, or we can find out." Kari was right, and all three of them knew it. Finally, Gatomon had gathered herself enough to start scrubbing the dirt off her paw. Kari looked at Tai. "So…last I remember, Sora was with us when we blacked out. Should we try to find her?"

He nodded. "I'd like to know where Agumon is, too."

"I know," Kari answered. She walked to the pile of clothes that she'd just taken off and fished her raincoat out of the bottom. She pulled a rain jacket out of a box marked "TTC". She tossed it to Tai.

"Uh, Kari, wasn't this meant for the refugees?"

"Aren't you technically a refugee?"

"…Good point," Tai answered.

Gatomon looked up from trying to rub dirt off her arm. "I think that's as good as I can get it," she thought aloud. She tied her ears back again so that her head would fit inside the hood of her poncho and slid the poncho on. "I guess…there's nothing to gain from sticking around here."

"No, there isn't," Kari answered.

They looked around for Agumon and Sora for a few minutes, and it didn't take long to find them. However, they weren't in as good condition as Tai and Kari had been: she, too, had been reduced to a young teen, but…

"Tai!"

"Sora, not you, too?"

" 'Not me' what?"

"You've been turned into a kid, too."

"_Turned?_ What're you talking about? I've been a kid since I stopped being a baby! And…where are we, anyway? And where are Matt, and Izzy, and T.K.?"

"Sora…? Can't you remember?"

"Remember what? What're you talking about?"

"Sora, you and I had volunteered to come here!" Kari answered.

"Volunteered?"

"This is the refugee camp! The Digiworld was destroyed, remember?"

"But…aren't we _in_ the Digiworld?"

"Sora, we're on Earth! …What's the last thing you remember, Sora?"

"We…were…in a Yokomon village…Biyomon had just digivolved to Birdramon and saved the village from Meramon…"

"Sora, that was thirty years ago! We've grown up, and we made it back home! It's not 1999 anymore, it's 2028!"

"Tai…you're scaring me."

"Sora, it's true!" Biyomon insisted.

Sora buried her face in her hands. With a wavering voice, she spat, "It's not right to play tricks on a girl who's scared, cold, hungry, and alone!"

"Sora, we're scared, too," Kari answered. "And…don't worry, there has to be some food around here, somewhere."

Agumon whispered to Tai, "I can't remember anything past then, either, Tai."

"This is just too weird," Tai thought aloud. "There has to be some reasonable explanation for all this!"

"We aren't going to find it sitting around here," Gatomon thought out loud. "And we aren't going to find Sora, Agumon, and Biyomon any food standing around here, either. C'mon. Let's get moving again."

"Is all going according to plan, Sergeant? Have we finished construction of the base?"

"Yes, Sub-Major."

"Then I think it's time we implemented phase three of our plan."

"Yes, Sub-Major. We shall begin sending right away."

Brock had felt better than he felt right then. He was flitting between consciousness and sleep, and was barely thinking. He felt a nuzzle on his neck and let out a low grunt, as if to tell whatever nuzzled him, "Go away!" A moment after the grunt, the nuzzling started right back up again. This was a rude awakening, whatever it was. He opened his eyes and, once he had managed to focus, he was staring right in the face of a strange-looking dog or wolf of some kind. It had blue fur and odd-looking horns coming out of his head. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of Brock's neck: if this was a pokémon, it wasn't one he'd ever seen before.

The situation only got worse when he heard this creature speak to him. He didn't even catch what it had said because he was so shocked.

"Hello? Are you okay?"

"Huh?"

A second voice sounded behind him: "Did you get hit so hard you can't hear us?" Brock turned. The second creature that was talking was even stranger than the first: he had one eyeball that seemed to take up most of the space in his head, lacked arms, and hopped around on a single foot.

"Uh…I can hear you just fine."

"Then why didn't you tell us where we are like we asked?"

Brock looked around. For the first few moments, he had been so absorbed in wondering what these creatures were that it didn't occur to him that he wasn't at the pokémon arena where he had passed out. "Ah…because I don't know, either."

Both creatures sighed in unison. "One question:" the large, yellow eyeball-creature said. "This is a big city. So how come there are no people?"

This was yet another thing that had not occurred to Brock thanks to the sheer weirdness of his wake-up-call. "Uh…that _is_ a good question."

"Is there anything you _do_ know!" the eye-creature spat.

"Not…_really_, no," Brock answered. "Uh, this might sound like a dumb question, but…_what are you_?"

The eye looked at him as though he were nuts. "I'm Suezo!"

"That's what your kind is called?"

"Yeah."

"…Then who's your friend?"

"I wouldn't call him a friend."

"Me either," the wolf shot back. "I'm called Tiger. I take it that you're not from around here if you haven't seen Monsters like us around."

"I wouldn't say that I'm familiar with this city."

"Well, join the club," Suezo answered. "What is this place, anyhow? …And how did you end up on your back in the middle of the street, anyway?"

Brock thought it over. "I was watching Ash and Gary having a pokémon battle, and then there was this light in the sky, and I blacked out."

Suezo and Tiger looked at each other, then back down at Brock. "Who're Ash and Gary, and what's a pokémon battle?"

Brock's jaw dropped. "You don't know what a pokémon is? Pokémon are all over this planet!"

"Are they?" Tiger asked.

"Last time I checked!"

"But what _is_ a pokémon?"

Brock could hardly get his mind around someone not knowing what a pokémon is. He let Vulpix out of its pokéball. "This is a pokémon."

Tiger looked at the tiny creature. He sniffed it, and Vulpix, apparently not liking being sniffed, hopped behind Brock's back.

"That little fox-thing is a pokémon?" Suezo asked.

Vulpix turned, and saw Suezo's huge eye. He panicked and tried to blow a flamethrower attack at him. Suezo jumped out of the way.

"Vulpix, return!" Brock called Vulpix back into its pokéball. Scratching the back of his neck, Brock apologized. "Sorry…I guess you startled him."

"Well, he startled _me_!" Suezo spat. "It's tough to believe such a little guy can shoot so much flame!"

"No kidding," Brock answered.

"I noticed you called him Vulpix, but you said he was a pokémon," Tiger observed.

"Well, Vulpix is a type of pokémon. There are over two hundred different types, you know."

"Actually, I didn't know, but---" Tiger's sentence was cut off as he heard some bloodcurdling roars.

"What was that?" Brock asked.

"I'm not sure I even want to know," Suezo answered. But the three crept up to the scene. They heard loud, unintelligible shouts, and suddenly there were a huge, red snake with a golden helmet, and a smaller, plant-like fairy fighting off a huge array of other, robotic creatures.

"Are those pokémon?" Suezo asked. "Because I've never seen monsters like _them_ before!"

"If they're pokémon, they're ones I've never seen before, either!"

Their conversation took a new turn as they saw one of the robots brutally attack and kill one of the many human bystanders. "Uh-oh!" Suezo thought aloud.

"You think these could be Moo's goonies?" Tiger asked.

"Dunno; I don't see any badges on them…"

"What're you talking about? Who's Moo?" Brock asked.

"Never mind. We have some Monsters to take down!" Suezo and Tiger hopped into the fight…


	15. Arrival 15

Chapter 15:

**T**rusting someone is difficult when what they're saying makes no sense. It's even harder when what they say makes perfect sense and the way they're acting does not. I speak from experience on the second one.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Sora shivered: it was not only pitch dark and very wet, but also cold. She tried to remember a time when she was more scared, and, because her memories of the fights with Piedmon, Apocalymon, and Malomyotismon were gone, she couldn't. She kept very close to Tai, as he was the only piece of familiarity in sight. She had known Biyomon and Agumon for a long time, but those memories were gone, so Sora didn't find them familiar.

They had searched for a few minutes, and found a pot of soup---unfortunately, the soup had long since spoiled, and a stench that smelled like a dead skunk drifted up from the open pot. "Okay, not that one," Tai thought out loud, hastily putting the lid back on the pot. He looked through the mess tent, and finally found a loaf of bread in a corner of the tent that was still edible. Sora ate her share of the bread ravenously, and was happy to finally put something in her stomach.

When she was done eating, she stared down at the bare table. She was still scared, and didn't know what was going on. Her trust for Tai and the illogic of what Tai was saying warred in her mind. She wanted to believe him, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. Maybe---maybe if she heard more, if she saw more proof, she could believe him… "Tai…tell me more about what happened…tell me more about what happened after we beat Meramon and how we got back home."

Tai spent an hour and a half explaining to her the details of Etemon, Devimon, Apocalymon, Myotismon, the Digimon Emperor, and umpteen dozen adventures that they had had between the time that they were first sucked into the Digiworld and the time when Malomyotismon was defeated.

Then he told Sora about how the Digiworld and Earth had met, and how their economies, cultures, and peoples had intertwined. He told her about the gate that Malomyotismon had created while he was trying to take over Earth, and how it had never shut, and that, for decades, humans and digimon had been able to travel from one world to the other via rocket by going through the portal.

And finally, he told Sora about her company, Takenouchi Textile Corporation. He told her about her idea that not only humans, but also digimon ought to be able to wear clothes. After all, digimon also get wet in the rain, cold in the snow, and hot and sunburned in the summer. He told her everything he knew about the Digiworld being destroyed, and about what she had done for the refugees in devoting her company to making them tents and blankets for four days. She scarcely believed it.

Tai could tell by the look on her face that it was too much to take in and that Sora still doubted what he said, and he also decided that what she needed was a little more proof. He said, "Hold on a second…I bet I know how I can prove this to you." He opened his umbrella, picked up another flashlight, and took her by the hand. He led her outside the refugee camp to a truck that stood motionless, with its backside trailer door open.

"What's the truck have to do with anything?" Sora asked.

"Look at the label on the side." He shone his flashlight on the side of the truck, and it read clearly in Japanese and in English, "Takenouchi Textile Corporation".

Sora's mouth dropped open. "I…I can't believe it, I…"

"That's not all. C'mon inside." Sora and Tai climbed into the trailer, and there were cardboard boxes stacked up to the ceiling. Each one had a different caption: "Cotton Blankets", "Polyethylene Rain Ponchos", "Cotton/Rayon Sweatshirts", and the like. Tai tore one box open and showed her the sweatshirts inside. They were of all sizes, and some of them were clearly not built to fit on a human body: they were meant for digimon. "Sora, you did all this. You don't remember it, but you did it."

Sora covered her mouth with her hand. "This…it's…"

"Too much to take in?"

"Yeah."

"Relax, Sora. You'll be fine. I'm scared, too. I was grown up, and I got turned into a kid, too. We're in the same boat."

Sora covered her face and sobbed.

Tai put his gloved hand on her shoulder. He looked as though he were about to say something, but hesitated. After a pause, he said, "Sora, remember I told you how we beat Devimon, and Piedmon, and Malomyotismon?"

Sora gradually nodded, not taking her face up from where was hidden in her gloves.

"Well, this is just another one of those adventures. This is just another time when we need to fight evil and our own despair and get through this. You don't remember how we came out of all that okay, but somehow we were okay then, and we'll come out of this okay now, too."

It was a few minutes before Sora moved again. When she finally did, she wiped the tears off her eyes, pulled up the hood on her poncho, tightened the strings, and said, "We aren't going to get anywhere sitting around here. C'mon. I bet your sister is waiting for us."

Tai wondered: was Sora faking her courage and determination, or was she really over it? He hoped she was really over it, and decided to pretend as though it were real bravery.

Joey bounded into the living room and plopped down on the couch next to Davis, joining him in watching a video. It was a martial arts film, and the particular scene that was on right then was one with a great deal of violence. Joey laughed as one of the heroes was hurled twenty feet into the air and landed softly in a garbage dumpster, whose lid appropriately closed over his head. (On his planet, children of his kind threw each other twice that relative height for fun, and landing on the ground didn't hurt at all thanks to his race's dense muscle structure.)

Davis turned to Joey as he was doing his high, squeaky laugh, since Davis hadn't heard a laugh like that before. Noticing how strange it is to see a baby kangaroo covered in petrolatum, he yelled into the next room, "Hey, Yolei, you didn't tell me you had another guest!"

"I don't!"

"Then what's this kangaroo doing here?"

"Oh, don't be so immature and make up some story about a zoo animal in my living room!"

Davis was about to say, "I'm not making this up; come and see it yourself," but thought better of it and, instead, offered the kangaroo some of the chips he was eating.

"Thank yew," the kangaroo answered in a shrill voice and stuffed his face with the chips.

Davis was further disturbed by the fact that this kangaroo could talk, but, once again, didn't say anything and (with an unsettled look on his face,) glued his eyes to the television and the black belt karate fighters that were turning themselves into missiles with fake-special-effects kicks. He also vowed to himself that he wouldn't let Yolei blame _him_ for this, as she undoubtedly would the second she saw it---assuming that the kangaroo wasn't a hallucination.

But there was a way to find out if he was seeing things: shaking his partner out of his nap, he asked, "Hey, Veemon, is there a baby kangaroo sitting next to me, covered in petrolatum, and eating corn chips?"

Veemon looked. "Yep."

"You think we should do anything about that?"

After giving it a moment's thought, he answered, "No."

"Me either."

"Thank yew," the kangaroo said again, begging for more chips.

After a few moments, Tina walked into the room with a pair of big, green, rubber gloves. She looked at Joey and said, "Oh, not on the sofa!"

Joey looked at her and let out an inquisitive squeak.

"_Joey!_ You're getting petrolatum all over the couch!" She scooped him up in her gloved hands. (She wore the gloves to keep the petrolatum off her hands.)

Still not taking his eyes off the TV for more than a few seconds, Davis asked Tina, "Is that little guy yours?"

"Yeah."

"Why is he covered in petrolatum, and why doesn't your mom know about him?"

"Uh…he's a baby digimon, and I found him in the street when it was raining outside." As if to justify herself, Tina cried, "I couldn't just leave him out there! I've been meaning to tell Mom about him, but…I wanted her to be in a good mood. Have you got any ideas how I can butter her up?"

"It's not bad enough that you made that Joey-thing all greasy? You have to do the same thing for your mom, too?"

"Shut up. 'Buttering someone up' is an American expression that means, 'to put in a good mood.' You've probably never heard it in Japan."

"Hmm. Well, I told her about him when I saw him."

Tina gasped. "You did? How did she take it?"

"She didn't believe one word I said. At all."

"Did she see him?"

"Nope. That would be my guess why she didn't believe me."

"Oh, good."

"One question: how do you plan to keep Joey fed without Yolei knowing about him?"

"Ah…that's why I need your help."

"He just had some corn chips."

"How many?"

"Roughly a handful."

"Good, that'll keep him fed for the evening. His stomach isn't all that big."

"Another thing: what's with the petrolatum?"

"He needs it, otherwise his skin gets a rash."

"Weird." After Tina had left the room, Davis asked Veemon, "So…you think that there's going to be trouble?"

"There's trouble _now_: the sun hasn't risen for days!"

"I mean more trouble than there is now, as a result of this kangaroo."

"…Yeah, probably," Veemon answered, not taking his eyes off the television set.


	16. Arrival 16

Chapter 16:

New frontiers are best explored so thoroughly that you're more familiar with the frontier than the place you called home. Even if it doesn't serve any practical purpose, it makes a swell irony joke.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Slagster (Kajidoragu)

Real Name: Urbo-tor-jorna

Caste: Var'ka

Speacial Attacks: Dra jalnor

Modes: One

The slagster was the first menace machine ever seen on Earth. It throws lava out its arms at by-standing humans and digimon. It main purpose is to preclude earth's inhabitants' safety in the streets of the cities. In the form of slagster, the slagster is incapable of digesting biomass and is restricted to ground combat scenarios. It has a large turning circle, and its programming is flawed in that it will intimidate, but will not attack nonmoving targets.

Brock decided he could not sit still while weird, blue monsters were attacking people. He reached down and plucked Onix's, Vulpix's, and Geodude's pokéballs from his pocket. "Onix, Vulpix, Geodude! Do everything you can to protect these people!" There was something very wrong, though: it wasn't an Onix and a Geodude that were taking his orders: they were Steelix and Graveler. "What?" he stammered. "But…how…did they evolve?" Brock noticed a slagster hurling lava at a clustered family. "Steelix! Use Iron Tail to stop that attack! Graveler, Vulpix, fight back with Rock Throw and Fire Spin!" It didn't take much to destroy the slagster. Between the fairy-like creature, the red snake, "Suezo", "Tiger", and Brock's three pokémon, the slagsters were made into scrap metal in a hurry.

All seven creatures and Brock were breathing heavily, staring at the piles of metal that had once been their opponents. After a moment, Brock pulled out his pokéballs, and called Steelix, Graveler, and Vulpix back. Everyone was staring at him as the three pokémon were sucked into those tiny devices in a flash of red light. Seeing that he had an audience, he asked, "What?"

"What did you just _do_?" one girl asked as the fairy suddenly turned into a small, radish-sized creature.

"I could ask the same question to _that_ one," he answered, pointing to the radish-sized thing.

"She just reverse-digivolved."

"Evolved in reverse! Is that even possible?"

"It is for her."

"Ah…I've never seen a pokémon like her before."

"Pokémon? I'm not a pokémon, I'm Tanemon!" the radish spat.

"Tanemon? Man, the number of new creatures I've seen---"

Suezo cut in, "One question…what were those blue-wheelie things that were just shooting lava at us? Does anybody know?" No one answered his question.

The scene suddenly became more interesting when the huge snake turned into a small, football-sized creature.

"…And a snake three times the height of a house can become that small that fast!" Suezo cried. "This is getting too weird for me!"

"Aren't you a digimon? Shouldn't you know about the Digidestined?" the girl asked.

"A what! First, that guy calls me a pokémon, now you call me a _digimon_? I don't even know what those _are_!"

The girl didn't even take him seriously when he said that. "Yeah…right… There is no actual way a person on this planet can not know what a digimon is!"

It was at this point that Brock noticed how pretty that girl who had picked up "Tanemon" was. It was also at this point that he noticed that there was a boy who, like her, had picked up the football-sized thing that had once been a snake. Disappointingly, he seemed to know her very well, and he said, "Mimi, let's think about this situation. We were adults yesterday and aren't today. The Digiworld gets destroyed. The city is practically deserted."

"Your point?"

"A lot of weird stuff is going on, here. Is it that unrealistic to believe that another weird thing can happen, like a handful of people who don't know what a digimon is?"

Mimi thought about it for a minute, swallowed hard, and answered, "You have a point, there."

Brock was still flush as a tomato, but he walked up to them and asked, "I'm getting the feeling that this is a stupid question, but what exactly _is_ a digimon?"

"…I'm not sure exactly how to explain it," the boy admitted. "I mean, this planet has been crawling with them for the past thirty years. You see, they're these creatures---Tanemon and Koromon are examples---and they have special attacks and everything, but they---well---they can speak and think and act like us humans, but they aren't like us in that they don't stay the way they are forever, physically. They digivolve---that is, they grow and turn into new types of digimon."

"Sound just like pokémon, so far…except for the talking part; pokémon usually can't speak. Those three creatures I called back into these pokéballs are a few examples of pokémon. Pokémon---well, some pokémon, anyway---can evolve, too, and they become new pokémon when they evolve."

"Are you a Digidestined to your pokémon, then?"

"Ah---I don't even know what that is."

"Digidestined are special: they're humans that are linked to the digimon with these things," she explained. She held out her digivice. "Michael and I are both Digidestined, and we're connected to Tanemon and Koromon. We can make them digivolve using these digivices."

"Huh. There's nothing like that with pokémon. Well…actually, I'm lying, there is." Brock pulled a transparent, glassy, red stone out of his pocket. "These things are called evolution stones. You touch them to some pokémon, and they'll evolve, but it doesn't work on all of them, and anybody can use it on a pokémon; you don't need to be special to use one. I've been saving it, in case I want to evolve my Vulpix."

"Hmm. I've never heard of an evolution stone."

"You think it'd work on us?" Tanemon asked.

"I don't know. Are you willing to try it?"

Tanemon shrugged. "Okay." Brock touched the stone to her, and nothing at all happened.

"Like I said, it doesn't work on all pokémon."

"Huh."

Tiger and Suezo, who had been listening to the entire conversation, butted in. "You're telling us that pokémon and digimon are supposed to be all over the place?"

"Yeah."

"Then how come we've never heard of them?" Tiger asked.

"…Good question. But if you're not pokémon, and you're not digimon, then what are you?"

"We're Monsters!"

"Monsters, huh? And…do Monsters evolve?"

"Not the same way your pokémon or digimon do. We can adapt new features, like wings and horns and stuff, but we stay the same monster."

Michael cut in, "But one question: how come you don't know about digimon if they're supposed to be everywhere? And…how come we're kids again?"

"That was two questions," Suezo pointed out.

"Again?" Brock asked. "What do you mean, again?"

"Right now, on our calendar, it's the year 2028. And I was born in the year 1983."

"That would make you 45 years old, but you look more like 15, to me."

"Yeah, I noticed that, too. And this happened overnight, whatever it was."

"That is weird. What do you think did it?"

"We have no clue whatsoever. And, of course, there's the Digiworld being destroyed---"

"Digiworld? What's that?"

"Are you even _from_ this planet?" Mimi had meant to say that as sarcasm, but it quickly dawned on her that that question was far more significant than sarcasm…

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

So…here we are again: I'm writing, and you're reading. Hey, reading is good for you. Enjoy it.

I bet you're wondering where this is going. You already know about the fact that other space aliens are involved, but I purposely tried to keep quiet most of what's _really_ going on to keep the suspense up.

Anyway…I bet you've been wondering, "If the Digidestined, the tamers, the pokémon trainers, and the Monster Rancher crew aren't fighting each other, then what _are_ they fighting?" Let's just say that I had to come up with a whole new batch of creatures; ones whose mission is to destroy, desecrate, and demolish. Slagster is only the tip of the iceberg. Some are man-eaters, which is part of what I meant when I said this might get a little gory. Like I say, viewer discretion is advised. And if you're a young, impressionable child, then you really shouldn't be reading this: it's not something you'd like, anyway! It just about turns into a soap opera halfway through! …though not totally. Anyway, there are quite a few of those creatures: as of right now, I have designed over forty creatures. They have special attacks and names in alien languages, but they have easier-to-understand nicknames, like slagster, black box, saberstrike, Miss Gnomer…there are a few bad puns in there, you can tell.

Anyhow, I hope you've been enjoying this. I know I am.


	17. Arrival 17

Chapter 17:

**B**e glad if you pity someone, even while you're feeling sorry for them: someday, someone might have reason to pity you!

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Kari was just putting down the receiver on the military phone when Tai and Sora walked back in the door of the tent, back from the TTC truck. "Any luck?" Tai asked.

Kari shook her head. "The army's phones aren't giving me a dial tone. I've tried everything to get them to work, and they just won't help."

"So much for calling a cab to get us back to your apartment."

"But Tai," Sora pointed out, "If this refugee camp is supposed to be full of six hundred thousand people and digimon, then where is everybody?"

"Good question."

Kari sighed. "So…what do we do now?"

After thinking about it, Tai answered, "We have two choices: we can look around the camp and see what we can find, or we can try to walk to the city and find your apartment."

"I'm curious to know whether whatever turned us into kids affected anybody else, as well," Kari answered.

"We might as well look around," Sora agreed. "We might be able to find a few answers if we stay here a little while longer."

"Fine then," Tai said, putting his rain jacket back on. "Shall we?"

They looked around the camp, and only found a few adults and a couple children who were equally clueless. Some of them were hungry, and the three Digidestined ended up finding food for them---in fact, there were several truckloads of food for the refugees, and it was way more than enough to feed everyone.

It had been a few hours since they had awoken and found out they were children. There still wasn't a light in the sky. They were huddled around an electric lantern they had found in the army barracks, as artificial light bulbs were the only source of light that existed in their strange, dark universe. "So…what now?" Sora asked. "We've been around the camp, and we still have no answers."

"I guess the only other thing is to try to make it to the city," Tai answered. "There's nothing more that we can do sitting tight here."

"But how do we get there?" Sora asked.

"We _could_ walk," Kari answered. "It's only a few miles away from the camp. That's why the army chose this site; they wanted it to be close to a place where there was a major airport."

"Walk? In the rain?"

"It's not that bad. I mean, we've been doing that for the past five hours," Tai answered.

"And I'm sick of it!" Gatomon spat, wringing out her tail.

Just then, Kari noticed that Gatomon's tail ring was gone. "Uh-oh, Gatomon, you're missing something."

"Huh?" Gatomon gasped as she realized what Kari meant. "But I---_huh_!"

"What?"

"My tail ring was a major conduit for my strength before, and, when I lost it, I didn't have champion-level power. But right now, I don't feel any weaker than usual...unless the pain in my feet counts," Gatomon added, taking off the galoshes she'd been wearing. All of a sudden, Gatomon gasped.

"Gatomon?" Kari asked.

Gatomon waved her paw, "It's okay," and coughed a few times. After collecting herself and swallowing spit, she answered, "I just realized that I don't _need_ my tail ring. It's…it's my boots! _They're_ my new conduits, not my tail ring!"

"Then…whatever turned us into kids fused your boots with the rest of your body?"

Gatomon nodded. "It looks that way."

Tai scratched his head. "This just gets weirder and weirder!"

"Tina, we can _not_ keep a kangaroo in this house!"

"He's not a kangaroo, mom! We called the St. Paul Zoo, and there is no kangaroo missing! Besides, we have bigger problems than a kangaroo if you, Dad, and Davis just got about 30 years younger!"

"Exactly, and the fact that we have bigger problems is one of the reasons why we can't keep him."

"But where else does he have to _go_!"

"I'll have your dad drop him off at the animal shelter."

"The animal shelter? They'll put him to sleep!"

"They'll do no such thing. They'll be able to sell him to a zoo someplace and make a profit for---"

Joey, oblivious to this discussion up until then, walked in and asked, "What are two Tinas talking mad about?"

Yolei's and Tina's jaws dropped as they heard him talk. "You can talk?" Tina asked.

"Joey talk."

"Since when?"

"Since Tina teach me."

"When did I teach you how to talk?"

Joey gave the question some thought and shrugged. "What two Tinas talk mad about? And why _two_ Tinas? Joey think there only one Tina!"

"Uh…there is only one Tina. I'm Yolei."

"Yo-lee? …_Look_ like two Tinas."

Tina shook her head. "I'm Tina; that's Mom."

"Mom? …But Mom say 'Yo-lee'."

"I _am_ Yolei. Tina calls me Mom because I am her mother."

"Muh-ther? …" Joey snorted loudly. He demanded, "No use words Joey no understand!" and left the room.

Tina turned to her mother and said, "Feel a little more open-minded about having Joey here, now?"

"**_No_**."

Tina's jaw dropped. "_Mom_! You can't turn a sentient creature out into the cold!"

"What choice do we have?"

"Why _can't_ we have him?"

Yolei couldn't think of a reason, but didn't want to look indecisive, so she changed the subject by asking, "How did you find him, anyway?"

"Out in the rain. A few nights ago. He was cold and wet and---greasy."

"Greasy? Okay, _that's_ a new one. I have to give you points for originality, but---"

"Ask Hawkmon: it's true! He was covered in petrolatum! And if he doesn't stay covered, he gets a rash on his skin!"

"Oh, making the lie complicated just so that it seems believable? _Sure_, sounds convincing to me!"

"Mom, I am _not lying_! He was greasy, covered in bits of fallen leaves and gravel: filthy as they come. And he had a data cube with him. Something he must've picked up off the ground."

"Really?"

"Mom, ask Hawkmon: I am _not lying_!"

Yolei shook her head.

"What is your problem with having Joey here? It's not like he's trouble, or anything!" There was a loud clanging noise, but it was only a fork falling off the dining room table. It was Joey's doing.

Yolei shook her head again. "Tina, there is no way we can keep him."

"Why not? We can keep _Davis_!"

Tina had her beaten on _that_ one.


	18. Arrival 18

Chapter 18:

**W**hich is worse: beginning to do something without knowing what you're doing, or, in the middle of something, realizing that you've forgotten what you're doing? (Tough call. Personally, I wouldn't take either choice.)

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Veemon stirred from his nap and noticed that there was a small change in the world around him: it was quiet…_too quiet_… He opened one eye, and found that the television set had blinked off. "Huh? Davis, how come the TV set isn't working?"

There was no answer.

Veemon looked over at Davis. He was staring blankly at the inactive television screen. "Davis?"

Still no answer. Davis wasn't even breathing.

"Aw, great! This always happens the minute someone turns off the TV in front of his face…" Veemon got up and took his helmet off. He began smacking it as hard as he could with his fist, and sounded like a bell and made a terrible racket.

Davis blinked twice, started breathing again, and looked at Veemon. "Uh, Veemon, what's going on?"

"The boob tube died on you. Blackout."

"…Again?"

"Yep. Cooked your brains, too."

"Wow. Thanks for snapping me out of it," Davis sighed. He stretched. "So, was I missing anything?"

"No. Except maybe oxygen---"

Davis's digivice suddenly blinked. He looked down at it. "Huh?" There were a few blips on the radar screen. "I wonder what those are?" He walked over to Yolei and pointed out the blips to her. "What do you make of this?"

"Look like digi-eggs to me. You take Veemon with you and check them out."

"Oh, great. Exercise. C'mon, Veemon."

So they walked for ways into a field full of tall grass. Much to his surprise, there were, sitting in front of him, the digi-eggs or courage and friendship. There were also the digi-eggs of love, sincerity, the golden egg of kindness, and one digi-egg he couldn't identify. It was yellow, and had a brown, arch-shaped crest on it that reminded him of a rainbow or a smile. He could only lift the digi-eggs of friendship, kindness, and courage, of course, so he decided that he'd have to get Yolei to come back for the other three. On their way back, Veemon tripped over something. "What'd you step on?"

"I dunno," Veemon answered, "But I'm sure glad this helmet is padded." Looking down at it, they discovered that it was a digivice. It was like Davis's, except that it was colored a deep rust-color where Davis's was colored blue. Next to it lay a datacube. "Who do you think these are for?" Veemon asked.

"Beats me. Maybe the datacube has some answers on it, but we won't be able to use it until the power comes back on." Davis put both items in his pockets. "C'mon. Let's get back to the house."

Yolei had an incredulous look on her face when Davis told her about the other digi-egg and the digivice. "You mean to tell me that there's another Digidestined around here that the digivice and egg are meant for?"

"That's what it looks like," Davis answered. "I don't see what else it could be."

Little did they know whose adventurous ears were picking up that conversation: Tina wondered, _Could that Digidestined be **me**? ...Hey, I'm the daughter of two Digidestined! Whatever genes make my parents Digidestined would have to be in me, too._ She snuck downstairs, scooped up the digivice off the counter, and ran to the field, following the trail of pushed-aside grass that Davis had made coming back from where the digi-eggs had been. She looked at the three digi-eggs that were still standing there. Davis had mentioned that the unknown digi-egg had been yellow, and there was only one egg that fit that description. She reached for it and picked it up. It was so weightless that she wondered if it wasn't hollow. A burst of rust-colored light filled the air. The light blinded Tina, so she shut her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that a digimon had appeared. It was large for a rookie-level digimon, and it looked like a small dragon. It had tan-colored scales, wings, and a long neck.

"Are you…my digimon?" Tina asked.

The digimon answered in a high, youngish, feminine voice, "Well, you moved the digi-egg of adventure, didn't you?"

"If that's what this one is, then yes," Tina answered, holding up the marigold-colored egg.

"That's the one! I've been waiting in status for you to pick me up for---I don't know how long. Thanks for moving it!" The digimon shook off her scales. "It feels great to be out!"

"Wow. Wait 'til I show Mom! C'mon!"

The digimon followed her. "Uh…where're we going?"

"To my house. It's not far. …By the way, what was your name?"

"Youngdramon."

"Hmm. But---how exactly does the digi-egg work?"

"You just hold it up and yell, '**digi armor energize**!' "

"Cool! I'll try it! **Digi**---"

"Hold it, hold it!"

"What?"

"Save it for when there's some actual fighting that needs to be done!"

"What!" Tina was overjoyed: there was going to be some actual fighting, some real conflict, some special attack-wielding, shooting, cutting, blasting, and all that! It was going to happen! _WOW!_

It was a while before they arrived at the house. It had gotten dark since then; clouds had rolled in and covered the full moon and the stars. Tina was overjoyed and said to Yolei, "Mom, meet Youngdramon, _my_ digimon! The digivice Davis found was _mine_!"

"What! _You!_" Yolei had found it enough responsibility to be a Digidestined herself, but to have a daughter in the line of fire along with her? No way!

"Yes, me!" Tina was confused why her mother wasn't happy for her.

Yolei slammed a fist down on the table and, half speechless, spat, "Tina, you are never to go out on your own again!"

Tina was shocked: here this was, a happy occasion, pulled off without a hitch, and her mother was scolding her! "Mom?"

"We were worried about you! I sent Davis out to find you before it---" thunder interrupted Yolei, and it immediately began to pour outside. She finished "---starts to rain. …Now, what if you had been out there?"

"So I'd have gotten a little wet, big deal!"

"Tina, you could catch a cold out there!"

"You're too overprotective, Mom!"

Yolei sighed. "Tina, you're not to go out alone again. That is final. It's not safe for a girl your age to be out there by yourself."

"This coming from a girl my age?" Tina spat.

"Now, that's enough, young lady!"

At that moment, Davis burst in, and he was soaking wet. Looking at Tina, Yolei said, " 'A little wet' you said? I'd say that's more than a little wet…hey, wait a second! Davis, why are you all wet?"

"Because it's raining out! Duh!"

"…I _knew_ it was going to be raining out, that's why I gave you a folding mini-umbrella. So why didn't you use it?"

"Uh…because…I…put it in my pocket and forgot it was there."

Yolei covered her eyes and shook her head.

Tina giggled without covering her mouth. Youngdramon circled her ears with her finger and shot back, " '_Duh_!' "

"Now _you _shut up!" Davis spat, pointing at Youngdramon. "Uh…who are you, anyways?"

"Youngdramon."

"_Myy-yyy_ digimon!" Tina happily answered, stroking Youngdramon's head.

"**_You!_** A Digidestined? …_Oh, no!_ If you're a Digidestined and the Digidestined are supposed to save the world again, then everyone's in deep trouble!"

Tina rolled her eyes. "I need to get myself a Digidestined outfit, like the rest of you always had. But a _cool_ outfit, not like the ones you guys are wearing---"

"_Hey_!" Davis spat.

She scampered up the stairs, stayed up there for fifteen minutes, and came back down in the exact same clothes she'd had on earlier.

"So, that's your cool outfit, huh?" Davis asked, still drying off.

"_No_! I decided that I'd have to see what Youngdramon's armor form looks like before I could decide what I would look like. My hat and her armor form would have to match."

"What! I don't wear a hat to match Raidramon or Flamedramon! …Or Magnamon, for that matter."

"No duh. That's why you look geeky. …And there's other reasons, too. But, anyway, I'll wait with the outfit until later."

Kari had an interesting idea: if everyone in the camp was having problems getting food and keeping warm---and dry, for that matter---then everyone else that they might find in the city might be, too. There was no telling how far the problem had reached. So she got the idea to take some of the clothes, blankets, food, water, and humanitarian gear that were stockpiled in the camp and load them into backpacks for them to carry on their way to the city. No one objected to that idea, so they set out. But they only set out _on foot_ after considering every other alternative: "Do you think I should digivolve and carry you guys?" Biyomon offered.

Agumon shook his head. "Thanks, but I don't think that's a good idea, Biyomon. The wind resistance on your back would blow more rain at us, and it'd be even worse than walking."

"What about the truck?" Tai asked.

Kari looked out from inside the cab of the truck and shook her head. "It's out of gas. Besides, I'm the only one of us with a driver's license, and---in this body, since I'm a kid and not an adult, I'm too short to reach the pedals and see out the windshield at the same time."

"Great. I guess we don't have much choice, then," Tai muttered. "Oh, well…the sooner we get started, the sooner we'll be there."

So they walked…for a _long_ time. Finally, Sora nudged Tai. "Tai, I think it's time we got some sleep. Did…you happen to pack a tent?"

"No. Did you?"

"No."

"Kari?"

"What?"

"We're thinking it's time to set up camp. Did you pack a tent?"

"I _might've_. I _think_ I did." She took off her backpack and began searching. "…and here it is!" Tai and Sora let out a sigh of relief: the thought of having to sleep outside in the rain was awful. Unfortunately… "Oops…wait, this is a package of Red Cross blankets. Never mind, I'll keep looking." Tai and Sora looked at each other with a pair of uncertain gulps. Kari kept rummaging. "Okay, here it is! …No, wait…these are rainsuits for the Red Cross workers. Never mind." Drops of either sweat trickled down the backs of Tai and Sora's necks. Kari kept rifling around for the tent. "Okay, _finally_. Here it is…" Kari sighed. "Nope, these are the blankets, again."

Gatomon snarled. "All right, all right…leave this to a pro," Gatomon dove into Kari's backpack headfirst. As Gatomon dove, the bits and pieces of stuff in Kari's bag seemed to move and wiggle. But suddenly, they stopped wiggling.

"Gatomon?" Kari, Tai, and Sora asked in unison. There was no answer.

"Gatomon, this isn't funny," Kari said.

"No kidding," a muffled answer came. "I have the tent, that's the good news."

"What's the bad news?" Tai asked.

"I'm _stuck_ in here!"

Kari rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. "Let me see if I can get you out." Kari reached into the backpack, seemed to have grasped something, and pulled.

"A-aaaaaaa-aaahhH!" Gatomon shouted as Kari yanked her out of the backpack by the tail. "Will you stop that?" Gatomon asked.

"Sorry…" Kari set Gatomon down. "And now the _real_ challenge," Gatomon sighed, shaking herself off.

"Uh-oh…what's that?" Sora asked.

"Setting it up," Gatomon sighed.

After a few minutes of work, they were inside at last. They took off their drenched raingear and Sora pulled a towel out of her backpack. She dried herself off and offered it and a couple more towels to the digimon and to Tai and Kari. They were exhausted from worry, uncertainty, and a lot of walking. Tai, Kari, and the digimon were asleep before long, but Sora wasn't asleep so soon yet. She whispered, "Biyomon, are you asleep?"

Biyomon groaned. "Sora? What is it?"

"It's…I can't get to sleep."

Biyomon got up on her hands and knees. "Why not?"

"I'm just scared that I won't wake up _here_. …I'm scared that the next time I open my eyes, I'll end up in some other world and you and Tai won't be with me." Her voice sounded like it had tears mixed in with it.

Biyomon quietly crawled up closer to Sora until they were nearly touching. She remembered that, while Sora was wallowing in guilt in the Digiworld after Demidevimon had been lying to her, Sora had also had trouble sleeping, worried with the idea that she'd never know what it was to care for someone. One rainy afternoon, she and Biyomon had taken shelter under the roots of a tree. At the time, the rain seemed to illustrate the landscape of Sora's heart: miserable, sad, and unpromising. Sora finally burst into tears, and Sora had explained to Biyomon how lonely and afraid she felt. Then, too, they had both been exhausted, and the solution that came to Biyomon's mind was for Sora to fall asleep holding her like a teddy bear, so that she'd know she wasn't alone even when she was asleep. Biyomon hoped the same solution would work now: "Sora…you're not alone. We're in this together. And I'm not going to leave you all alone. Sora, maybe it'll help you go to sleep if…if you went to sleep holding on to me. It worked before."

"Before?"

"It's…it's something Tai left out when he was telling you about what happened after we beat Meramon. There was this digimon called Demidevimon that was servant of that evil digimon Myotismon. To make a long story short, Demidevimon told you that you'd never be able to care about anyone, and that you'd never be able to love anybody, and...well, the way he said it, he got you to believe it. You were scared, then, and it was raining then, too. And you couldn't sleep. So I told you to go to sleep holding onto me so that you'd know you weren't alone even when you weren't awake. And it worked."

"You'd…you'd do that for me?"

"Of course, Sora!" Biyomon nuzzled her shoulder. "You don't remember it, but we went through a lot together."

"Thanks," Sora barely whispered. Sora wrapped her arms around Biyomon, shut her eyes, said her prayers (with enthusiasm), and tried to sleep---with some success.


	19. Arrival 19

Chapter 19:

Success feels even better when you had to overcome something big to get it.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Sora was stirred from her sleep by a loud, "Aaawww!" from Kari. Kari had awoken to an endearing scene: Sora was curled up, nearly in the fetal position, asleep with her arms wrapped around Biyomon.

"Hmm?" Sora asked with one eye open.

"Uh---sorry," Kari sheepishly answered. Sora got the idea of what Kari had really been emitting that pity party about her. She brushed the thought aside: she'd made it through the night, and she was in the same place she'd been when she had gone to sleep: she was still with Biyomon, Tai, Agumon, Kari, and Gatomon. That was the important thing.

She stretched and yawned. She listened and looked around. The only light was from a flashlight Kari was holding, and she still heard trickling and pattering noises outside. "Oh, no! It's not still raining, is it?"

"And it's not light out, either," Kari agreed. "Tai's out using the latrine. Once he's back, we're breaking out some of the food and having breakfast."

Sora groaned and sat up, hugging her knees. She looked at the door to the tent and sighed.

"I know," Kari answered. "I don't like it, either. I'm almost scared that there isn't even a sun in the sky, anymore. But I know that's not possible; if there wasn't a sun, we wouldn't even be alive."

Sora shook her head. "So…let's say that we get back to the city and we find out that the camp and this road were the only areas that were affected by whatever turned us into kids. And if I'm really a CEO…" Sora buried her face in her arms. "I'm just a kid! I don't know how to handle a big company!"

"Sora, you could just resign as CEO and the job would go to one of your vice presidents. You'd still be the owner, and that would give you enough money to live on."

Sora answered with a sigh.

"Sora, what's your problem with believing that everything is going to be all right?"

"Take a look outside. There's no sun, no moon, no stars, and not even light reflecting off the clouds from the city. It's pouring out there. And we have a long ways to walk before we get to shelter again."

"But there is shelter," Kari pointed out.

"Are we sure? Are we sure about anything?" Sora shot back.

Kari sighed and put a hand on Sora's shoulder. "Sora, someone had to have built the road we've been walking on since last night. And every landmark we've seen along the road I've seen a dozen times. I'm from the city, so I'd know."

Sora sighed.

Kari patted her shoulder. "Relax. We have no reason to think that the city isn't still there. And, even if it's not, it's better to try to find it than to sit here forever."

Sora groaned. "I guess you're right."

After they'd eaten breakfast, the three of them packed up the tent and set off again. After a few miles, there was a sudden flash of light. It took a while for their eyes to adjust, but, when they could finally see again, they saw the most brilliant sight ever: two suns burned brightly in the sky behind them, one a little to their left and one to their right. But in front of them, the raindrops in the sky before them cut, baked, and polished the light from those two suns into two spectacular rainbows. It was awe-inspiring. And they could clearly see the light from those two suns, even though it was still raining.

There was an awesome silence that hung over them that was filled only with the loud patter of raindrops. Kari was the one who broke the silence: "I wish I had my camera! ---Hold on a second, I _do_!" She pulled her camera out of her pocket and snapped a photo of the rainbows that were in front of them. She hoped the photo would turn out.

It was a long time before Gatomon said, "So…this is---how is it possible?"

"I don't know," Tai answered. "Unless one of those two lights in the sky isn't the sun."

"Well, it is weird…but it's beautiful," Biyomon thought aloud.

"Hmm…Almost worth walking this far in the dark. But how can it be raining and sunny out at the exact same time?" Sora asked.

"Good question."

The light from those two suns suddenly took on a very red color, and the rain immediately stopped. Sora looked up at the sky, just in time to see that the rain had been replaced by a much more deadly weather condition: huge meteors of ice were raining out of the sky, each irregularly shaped in chunks about a half a meter across. She had to dodge bomb after bomb of ice.

Agumon took off the digimon-sized poncho that he'd been wearing so that he wouldn't break it when he grew, and he yelled, "**Agumon, digivolve to…Greymon!** …Quick, everyone, get beneath me!"

The other five scurried underneath Greymon's bulk. Sora was so terrified that she clung to Tai's arm. It was no more settling to have nothing but light the color of blood to see by. The red light and the hail of icy meteors disappeared as quickly as they had come after a gruelingly long minute. The world was as it had been before it started: bright and wet. Greymon regressed back to Agumon.

"Agumon, are you okay?" Tai asked.

"I'm a little scratched up, but I'll be fine," he answered as he put his poncho back on to cover himself from the rain.

Sora was still shaken up. "What on Earth was that?"

"I have no clue. But the next time I see nothing but red light coming from the sun, I'll know to stop!"

Sora slowly let go of Tai's arm, clutched her elbows, and shivered. It was unnerving, how she stood there, getting rained on and not even bothering to replace her hood. She wasn't crying, but she was pale.

Tai had seen enough: he opened his umbrella over her, put his hand on her shoulder, and said, "Sora…I need you to look me in the face and tell me that you're going to be okay." There was silence for a few moments. "Sora, we can't go on until you look me in the face and tell me that you're going to be okay." So, finally, Sora bit back her fear, looked up into Tai's eyes. His eyes were both dissecting and compassionate, both studying and worrying. She inhaled deeply and forced her vocal cords to say, "I'm going to be okay."

Tai didn't congratulate her. He knew how shy she could sometimes be, so he just motioned for them to continue and began walking down the road some more. As time and distance wore on, the light from one of the two suns dwindled and died, and the other sun was covered by the same, homogeneous white clouds that had at first covered the sky over the refugee camp. The rain slowly rolled to a stop. Then, over the last hill, there it was: the city. They had made it.

Pikachu opened his eyes. He was sprawled out on pavement, which was strange: he didn't recall going unconscious anywhere near a blacktop. Pikachu looked around. Ash was next to him, and he was asleep. Pikachu got up and nuzzled his neck.

"Nnngh," Ash answered.

Pikachu became more vocal: "Pika-pi! Ika, pi pika chu pi pikaaa!"

Ash opened one of his eyes and looked at Pikachu. "Pikachu? Uh…why am I lying out in the middle of the street?"

Pikachu shrugged. "Pika," he admitted.

"The middle of the road isn't the safest place for us to take a nap, so…hey, wait a sec! The arena where we were fighting Gary isn't anywhere near here! So…where are we?"

He heard a noise in a nearby alleyway. It was an unfamiliar female voice. He could hear the voice, but, at that distance, he couldn't understand the words she was saying. He got closer, wondering what was going on. He was taken aback when he saw a huge hand made out of blue marble stone touching the ground. Its palm was down, and whomever that hand belonged to was using it to get up. Ash crept closer in, and he saw a woman and a huge, blue, stone giant talking to each other. They were discussing where they were and how the people there must have very little wood if they make their houses out of stone. She also looked at a trash bag nearby, and said, "I've never seen a sack made of this kind of material. It's much more flexible than any cloth I have ever seen."

"This is clearly far from the temple where Moo knocked us out, milady."

"But if Moo knocked us out, then why would he take us here? If I were Moo, I'd put us in a dungeon or a holding cell on his flying castle---assuming I wanted us alive at all. I wouldn't have dumped my prisoners in some deserted city."

"He might put us in a city if he had the place riddled with booby traps."

"That's the only reason I can think of, too. I think we ought to be careful."

Pikachu found these two creatures very strange. The female creature sounded like a woman, but looked like a cross between a woman and a bat. She had two furry wings, a tail, and was partly covered in fur. Pikachu could catch her scent, and it was unlike anything he'd ever smelled before. It had the combination of the scent of human skin and of a living, furry creature's pelt. Pikachu found it even stranger when he saw her fly up onto the huge, stone giant's shoulder. He looked up at Ash, and he could tell that Ash wasn't any less stunned.

Ash looked down at Pikachu. "You think we should ask questions?" he asked.

Pikachu shrugged. "Ka, chu pi pika piiii chu pi-chu-ka."

"You're right, they don't seem _that_ unfriendly." He turned and said out loud (but not too loud) "Um…excuse us?"

She looked at him. "Yes?"

"Ah…this may be a stupid question, but---who are you?"

"My name is Pixie, and this is Big Blue."

"I could see that," Ash commented. "But I've---uh...what're those wings on your back? I've never seen a person fly like that."

"You haven't? ...Did you think I was human, young man?"

"Uh---yeah. I mean, you kind of look human, to me."

"I'm not," she answered.

"Then what are you?"

"You talk as though you've never seen a Monster before," she chuckled.

"Well…I…haven't," he admitted.

"Then what's that creature at your feet?"

"Pikachu? He's not a Monster, he's a pokémon!"

"A pokémon? I've never heard of one of those. Unless…oh, I get it: what we call a Monster, you call a pokémon. You have a different word for it, here, that's all. You see, Big Blue and I aren't from around here."

"Huh? …Well, I guess that makes sense. I'm…well, I overheard your conversation, and I thought I heard you mention that something knocked you out and you woke up here, and it's nowhere near where you went out. The exact same thing happened to me."

"Really?" Pixie and Big Blue thought this might be one of Moo's plots to lead them into a trap. "What knocked you out?"

"Well, all of a sudden, there was this bright light, and then all my friends and I passed out and then that's the last thing I remember."

"Friends?"

"Yeah, I've been traveling with three friends of mine, Misty, Tracy, and Brock, and I'd just finished a pokémon match against Gary---"

"Pokémon match?"

"Uh…yeah. I'm a pokémon trainer, and I had just beaten Gary in a match. Gary's an old friend of mine, who, for some reason, seems to half-hate and half-like me. But, anyway, I'd just beaten him, and then this thief came and tried to steal one of Gary's pokémon. Then Gary and I stopped him and his pokémon were fighting the thief's pokémon. Then there was the light, and we went out."

Pixie and Big Blue weren't totally trusting of Ash's testimony. "Can you tell us what city this is?" Pixie asked.

"Uh…no, I can't. I've never been here before---" all of a sudden, there was a horrible roar behind them. It was a metal-looking, dinosaur-like creature. "What's that thing?" Ash wondered. He pulled out his Pokédex, but it was no help: "Pokémon unknown. No available data." Ash put the Pokédex away. Ash looked up at it, and it seemed to be walking towards them with its mouth watering. "Uh, Pikachu, this guy doesn't look very friendly…"

Pixie and Big Blue looked at the metal creature. They were equally confused by it. "What is that thing?"

"I have no idea," Ash answered. "Dexter doesn't recognize it!"

"Dexter? What're you talking about---" an earsplitting shriek interrupted Pixie, and Golem was knocked backward by an invisible blast. She was thrown off his back and spread her wings to fly before she hit the ground.

Ash gulped. He reached down to pluck a pokéball from his belt, only to find that he had eighteen pokéballs at his disposal. He didn't stop to wonder why, he just sent out Charizard. "Charizard, use flamethrower on that thing!" Charizard blew a stream of flame onto the monster, and the creature was knocked back. It seemed to be in a daze of some sort.

Pixie flew in and landed. She pointed at the metal creature and yelled at him, "Hey! I used to be one of the Big, Bad Four! If you choose to fight me, you _aren't_ going to win!"

The creature only roared and shot Big Blue again, completely ignoring Pixie.

"_Fine_, then!" She spat. She extended both hands towards the creature and yelled, "Lightning!" A white blob of energy shot at the creature and blew him to bits.

Ash was perplexed: these were pokémon he had never seen before. What on Earth was going on? And…would he be able to catch some new pokémon, or compete in these new leagues? And what about Misty, Brock, and Tracy…or Gary and the thief, for that matter?

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Saberstrike (Dainokotetsu)

Real Name: Ferra-tor-grend'l

Caste: Nut'ka

Special Attacks: Garem Non Hin Tarr

Modes: One

The saberstrike is an assault fighter that, like other members of the Nut'ka caste, has a preprogrammed way of attacking people and digimon: it first attacks the digimon and armed humans. It then disables adults with a blast of sonic energy from its tail, and then eats the children alive before the adults' eyes. It is also armed with heat rods in its claws that let it reflect away enemy attacks.


	20. Arrival 20

Chapter 20:

A blank canvas can say a lot.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Are you having trouble interpreting the previous statement? …All right, who am I kidding! It means that I have temporarily run out of ideas for these quotes! But there will be more...eventually.

Misty wondered what her next move should be. She and Ghenki had just had a long talk about the definitions of "pokémon" and "Monster", and thoroughly explained to each other the forms and attacks of each one available for demonstration. Ghenki had also described their battle with Moo and their quest for the Phoenix, both of which had seemed to come to an end…only to be replaced by this, whatever it was. Misty had explained her pokémon journeys with Ash, and how he owed her a new bicycle.

But now that those explanations were over, there were a few more questions that needed explaining. They were, "Where are we?" "Why aren't we where we last remember being?" and "Where is everybody else?" These questions didn't have any immediate answers to them, so the only choice was to explore the city and see if they would be able to find any answers. Misty decided not to split up with them; she was lost enough as-is without being alone, too.

They explored around, trying to find some hint of intelligent life. They found a short person made totally of stone. He seemed frantic. They tried to ask him a few questions to no avail; he just kept ranting on about not being able to find his landlord or his car, and the strange decay that had suddenly enveloped his apartment.

So they moved on, hoping for answers elsewhere. On the way, the giant bunny ("Hare," as Ghenki had called him) walked to Misty's side and nudged her. It made Misty jump a little: she wasn't used to speaking with creatures that weren't human. But she decided to get the conversation over with as soon as possible, apologized for being startled, and asked Hare what his question was.

He asked, "You remember that little stone guy we saw a few minutes ago?"

"What about him?"

"He didn't look very much like a golem, to me."

"Me either. Unless he's a baby golem."

"He didn't _look_ like a baby golem…or sound like one. What I wanted to ask was, does he look like a pokémon to you?"

"None that I know of."

"If he's not human and he's not a Monster and he's not a pokémon, then what _is_ he?"

"I don't know."

"What planet are we _on_, anyways?"

Misty thought about it. If she _was_ on a planet besides her own, how would she be able to live? What friends did she have, and how would she ever see any of her loved ones again? Her face gradually shifted to one that might leak tears. Sensing that his question was causing the poor girl grief, he set his paw on her shoulder reassuringly. Reassurance wasn't the effect his paw had on her, though: a zing ran up her spinal column and she stood up very straight for a moment: the feel of a big, furry, padded paw on one's bare shoulder is not usually reassuring. It's more like scary. But, either way, it got the fear and despair of not ever seeing her family again out of her system.

Just as Hare was apologizing for all this grief he was causing her, Ghenki stopped and said, "Whoa, look up ahead!" There was a wall of rain cascading from a sky that was suddenly black and foreboding. What was even stranger was that the clouds stopped a little ways in front of them, as though a wall was blocking them. Beyond this wall (which was also above their heads), a starry sky smiled down.

"What on Earth?" Misty asked. She gradually walked towards the wall and stuck her hand through it. After leaving it inside the rain side of the wall for a moment, she cried, "Ow!" Her arm suddenly hurt and was pale, so she withdrew her hand. It came out drenched, and needed to be massaged for all the pain.

"Are you okay? What happened?" Ghenki asked.

"I don't know. All of a sudden, my arm hurt really badly. It felt all cold and---weird. It seems to be getting better, now."

"That is weird," Holly commented. "I wonder what could cause that?"

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by a loud cry of pain from Golem.

"Golem? What is it?"

"Somebody's…fire attack!" he groaned.

"What!" They looked behind him, and there was a slagster with weapons poised.

"What _is_ that thing?" Misty asked.

"I don't know. I've never seen a monster like that before!" Holly answered.

"Why is it attacking us?" Hare shouted.

"I don't know, but I don't think it'll stop!" Ghenki answered.

The slagster fired another gob of magma out his arm. It missed, but the magma began to melt the pavement. "Hey! What're you shooting at _us_ for?" Holly shouted. The slagster only fired again.

"You're not getting through to him!" Hare insisted. "Are we going to fight back, or what?"

Moochi hopped forward and shot a red beam out his mouth at the slagster. The slagster was destroyed surprisingly quickly; Moochi's shot pierced right through the slagster and made a visible hole in its chest. After a second, its arms hung limp and its head tilted backwards. It was dead. "Chi?"

"That was weird. Why would he attack us if he had such a small chance of winning?" Ghenki asked.

"All we're getting in this city is 'weird'," Misty thought aloud. "Was that thing a Monster?"

"No. Monsters get turned into disks when they're destroyed; this guy didn't turn into anything."

"And it didn't look like any pokémon I know. So…what was it?"

Pixie, Big Blue, and Ash were, for the time being, traveling together. They weren't exactly friends, but they definitely weren't enemies. Pixie and Big Blue were still wondering if this was Moo's doing: that metal creature wasn't one of Moo's Monsters; it wasn't even a Monster. If it had been a Monster, then it would've turned into a disc when they had destroyed it. Instead, it turned into a pile of scrap metal. Pixie and Big Blue were very wary of the city, but they saw no real evidence that gave them reason to believe that the story Ash had told them wasn't true. But they agreed secretly that, if they were attacked again, then they'd try to leave Ash behind.

It was a while before they were attacked again. But, when they were, once again, it didn't seem to be a Monster: it was a strange, black-colored figure that they never got a good look at.

He dove at Pixie from behind, and tried to fly away with her in his grasp. He bit her in the neck, all of a sudden spat, threw her away from himself, and yelled, "You're not human! What are you!"

"I'm Pixie!" she shouted back, letting her wings catch her in flight. She shot a few balls of lightning at him.

He stretched out his hands, and the balls disintegrated before they even touched him. "Nice try, 'Pixie', but you won't be able to defeat me! I'll take my leave now," he spat, flying quickly away.

Ash ran under Pixie and yelled up to her, "Are you okay?"

"He---injured my neck," she answered, holding a hand up to the wound to cover it.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes, but I'll…need to find a healer to patch it up. Since you're looking for your friends and I'm looking for a healer, we have two different goals. I think we ought to split up, now."

That logic didn't make sense to Ash, so he figured that she was getting away from him for some reason that she didn't want to explain to him. He shrugged and answered, "Okay. Take care of yourself."

"We will. Come, Big Blue."

"Yes, milady."

Kari's digivice beeped in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the screen: there were three red blips on the screen that represented her digivice, her brother's digivice, and Sora's digivice. But there was a blue blip, too. What it could represent, she had no clue. "Say, Tai? What do you make of this?"

"That looks like a digi-egg to me," he answered.

"A what?" Sora asked.

"Didn't we explain armor-digivolving to you?" Kari asked.

"No, you didn't."

"Well, it's kind of like normal digivolution, except that the digimon grow into the digi-eggs and the digi-eggs become armor for them."

"Huh."

Gatomon cut in, "Only about five digimon were ever able to armor-digivolve, and I was one of them. But if this isn't the right digi-egg, we won't be able to use it."

"Well, I guess it's worth a look," Sora thought aloud. "But, if you don't mind, I'd like to hurry to Kari's apartment. I'm dying to get out of these wet clothes, and I need a hot shower."

So they went to see what the egg was going to be. It was in a narrow alleyway, according to the digivices, and they could see a metallic object with a yellow gleam to it resting in the back corner of the alley. Kari and Sora cautiously approached it, while Tai took up the rear. He yelled to Kari, "What is it?"

"I don't know," Kari answered. "It has the crest of light on it, so I _guess_ it's mine. …And I can pick it up, so it _must _be mine. But this is a _golden_ armor digi-egg. The egg of light, _my_ egg, wasn't gold, so how can this---"

Kari was interrupted as she saw something black come flying at Gatomon. It hit Gatomon and paralyzed her. Similar blasts of black energy caught Agumon and Biyomon, too. She looked up, and saw the most horrific silhouette that she'd ever seen before in her life, gripping Tai by the shoulders and with his mouth to Tai's neck. He said, "I'm so starved, that I'll take _any_ human! Not just a girl!"

Kari screamed at the top of her lungs, and Sora joined her, not that Sora had any clue who this was. Kari knew who it was, and she was terrified by the thought that he could be back again…

So Ash was walking on his own, calling out the names of his friends. He spent the better part of the morning doing that, without finding anyone. Finally, he sat down on a park bench and sighed, taking off his shoes. "I don't know about you, Pikachu, but my feet are killing me."

"Ka."

"How do you suppose we got here, anyway? I mean, we were out in the middle of nowhere when that light put us out, and so why would we wake up in the middle of a city?"

"Chuuuuuu…"

"I know. And I hope we find Brock and Misty and Tracy soon, too. I mean, look at the sky. I feel like it's going to start raining at any minute." Pikachu shook his fur off, as though were wet, to express how he felt about getting soaked. Putting his shoes back on, Ash answered, "Well, I'm not a big fan of being wet, either, but there are worse things than that. I mean---"

He was interrupted: there were screams coming from an alley not far away. "Uh-oh."

"Pika, pi pika chu pi pika Chu."

"Yeah, I know that doesn't sound like Misty, but you don't sit around when you hear girls screaming." Ash turned his hat around so the bill faced backwards. "Let's go check it out."

"Pika!"

The two rushed to the scene, hoping they wouldn't find something _too_ horrible…


	21. Arrival 21

Chapter 21:

**D**ifferent people are made for different circumstances, and are suited to different stress levels and types of tasks. For instance, you don't send a stonecutter out as a diplomat (usually).

---The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Ash looked. There was a dark-colored, caped figure again, bent over and holding a boy who looked a year or two older than Ash. This figure looked like the same one he'd seen before when Pixie had been attacked. Ash saw the girls screaming and a drop of blood fall to the ground from the caped figure's arms. Ash guessed that the blood belonged to the boy, and so he looked down at Pikachu and commanded, "Pikachu, Thunder shock!"

Upon impact, the caped figure dropped the boy and turned around, disgusted. "You impudent---"

But Ash was a step ahead of him. He had already called Bulbasaur and Chikorita out of their pokéballs and was telling them, "Chikorita, Bulbasaur! Hold him down with your vine whip while we get Officer Jenny!" The two pokémon held him down, but not for long: he tore the vines off his neck and rose to his full height.

"Awh! What is he!" Ash yelled.

Bulbasaur looked at Chikorita. "Bulba-bulba!"

"Chi-KA!" Chikorita agreed. Bulbasaur's bulb glowed and a white sphere of light appeared in Chikorita's mouth.

"What're you doing? Is that---Solar beam?" he asked. "Well, it's worth a try: Bulbasaur, Chikorita! Use Solar beam!" The two pokémon fired their shots, and Myotismon stood in a daze for a moment before going unconscious. "Well, I guess _that_ worked. Bulbasaur, Chikorita, return!" Ash looked at the girls. "Is he going to be okay---"

One of the girls screamed, "BEHIND YOU!"

Ash turned around, just in time to duck as the stock of a rifle went flying at his head. A mass of strings went flying at him, and the next thing Ash knew, he was entangled in them and pushed aside onto the sidewalk. He looked up. There was a huge, red spider-like woman and a mummy-like man armed with a rifle, and the spider was throwing webs at the cloaked figure and dragging him out of the alleyway. She turned to Ash and spat, "You may be powerful, but there's no way you'll be able to stand up to Myotismon! Come, Mummymon. Let's get out of here!" And the two jumped into a jeep and drove away.

Pikachu hopped onto Ash and bit the webs to break them. After a minute, Ash was free. He walked back to the alleyway and found the two girls, crouching over the boy who was still on the ground. They were saying things like, "Talk to me!" "_Please_ don't die on us, Tai!" "Open your eyes!"

"Hey, do you need some help?" Ash asked.

"We need to get him out of the alley," one of the girls answered.

"There's a bench over there," Ash suggested. Ash, the two girls, and three pokémon that Ash had never seen before picked Tai up and set him down on the bench. Tai was cold, so the girl pulled a blanket out of one of their strangely full backpacks and wrapped Tai in it.

One of the girls said, "Kari, who was that guy with the cape, and what did he do?"

"His name was Myotismon, and he's---essentially he's a vampire. He was draining Tai's blood, and Tai's going to need medical attention. We need to find a doctor right away." Kari pointed to a payphone that was nearby. "Sora, go to that phone and dial 911."

Sora went to call, but she ran back with a worried look on her face. "The phone wasn't working at all."

"Uh-oh."

A grumble of thunder sounded overhead. "Man, this just gets better and better," Ash thought aloud. "Listen, I have a sleeping bag in my backpack that's waterproof. We should put him in that, too, so that he'll stay dry."

Sora began panicking: "Whatdowedo,whatdowedo!"

"Calm down, Sora!" Kari insisted. "We need to find a hospital, and get an ambulance to pick Tai up."

"Well---where is one?"

"I know where one is, but it's too long to walk there."

"You won't need to walk," a pink bird (who was one of the three pokémon) said. "**Biyomon, digivolve to… Birdramon!"**

Ash's mouth dropped open: this was one big change that this pokémon underwent when she evolved. He would _have_ to catch one of those!

"But…someone has to stay and look after Tai," Sora thought aloud.

Ash shook off the wonder of having seen a pokémon evolve so quickly and stepped forward. "I'll do it."

"You're sure?" Kari asked.

"I've been wandering around this city for hours trying to find some friends of mine, and that hasn't been doing me any good. If I decide to stay in one place and wait for them to come to me, then I might have more success. Beside, like you said, someone has to keep an eye on him, and it might as well be me."

"I'll stay with him, too," an orange, dinosaur-like pokémon added. (He had been with the girls and the pink bird.)

"All right. We'd better move it," Kari said, climbing onto Birdramon's talon. "We might as well leave the backpacks here," Kari added. "They'll slow us down."

As Birdramon flew away, Ash suggested to Pikachu, "You'll be dryer inside the sleeping bag, and your body heat will help Tai."

"Pi-KA!" Pikachu answered, saluting.

Ash fished his raincoat out of the bottom of his backpack and sat down next to the dinosaur on the bench. He sighed. "So…what's your story?" Ash asked.

"Well, it's a long one."

"I think we have some time on our hands."

"I guess you're right. Well, we've been walking for two days to get here from the refugee camp."

"Refugee camp? What happened to you?"

"Don't you watch the news on TV?"

"I'm a pokémon trainer, and I'm almost always on the road, so no."

"Then haven't you heard that the Digiworld is gone?"

"The _what_-world?"

The dinosaur gaped. "Are you even _from_ this planet? There is no way that you don't know what the Digiworld is."

"Listen," Ash said, "I'm _definitely_ not from around here, since there are pokémon that I've never seen before---"

"I don't think I've ever seen a pokémon before, unless that yellow guy you called Pikachu was a pokémon."

"He was. But aren't _you_ a pokémon?"

"No, I'm Agumon."

"Agumon, huh? Then that pink bird was Biyomon? …And she became Birdramon when she evolved?" Ash scratched the back of his neck.

"It's called digivolving, not evolving," Agumon answered.

"Well, do a lot of---whatever you guys are generally called---can you all speak?"

"Most of us, yeah. And we're called digimon."

"Hmm. Because most pokémon can't speak. And I can't believe that you've never heard of a pokémon before. It _is_ almost like we aren't from the same planet…

Rika awoke in a green, beautiful park. It was very warm, so she tied her jacket around her waist. She looked around. It was a gorgeous day outside, and she was---for some strange reason---the only one in the park. But how strange it was that park would be deserted on such a lovely day wasn't quite as important as the fact that Rika had no clue where she was. She began walking down one of the streets, hoping that she'd see something familiar. After all, she couldn't have gone far from the park where Growlmon had beaten Etemon. But nothing was familiar in this city; the signs were all written in English, none in Japanese. She couldn't tell where she was, or if she was even in Tokyo anymore. She wouldn't admit it to herself, but she was afraid.

Suddenly, a cold breeze bit her on the arm. She put her jacket back on, wondering how on Earth the temperature could have dropped ten degrees so suddenly. She kept walking, but it did her little good: she seemed to be going around in circles. She wondered if she should ask someone for directions---_no!_ She was smart; she'd be able to find a way home soon enough. So she kept walking. She heard some boy's voice calling out, "Misty! Brock! Tracy! Where are you?" and a smaller, shriller voice added, "Chu! Pikaaa! Kachu!" Rika was mildly curious, but didn't figure it was worth her bother to investigate.

After a few hours, she was tired from all that walking. So she sat down on a bench by the side of the road to rest. It was a mystery to her what direction she should be trying next. She was at the end of her rope. So it was settled in her mind: she'd call her mom and have her send someone to pick her up. Of course her mother would be worried, but she might believe her story: "I was hit by lightning so I fainted, and then I got lost." It was the truth (as far as she knew) whether it was believable or not, so she walked over to a payphone and put the receiver up to her ear---only to find that there was no dial tone. That wasn't good. So she tried another phone. It wasn't working, either. Not one of the phones in the bank worked, so Rika spat, "Huh! Must be disconnected." She kept walking, hoping to find another bank of phones. She did, but none of those worked. More frustrated than ever, she leaned against the phone with her eyes shut and uttered a disgusted sigh.

Suddenly, something in her world changed: a huge, gray cloud covered up the sun and robbed her of the sun's warmth. She could hear low grumbles of thunder, and knew that it was about to rain. That was not the kind of weather that she wanted to find herself lost and alone in. She looked around---and, suddenly, something looked familiar: the awnings of the stores matched the ones that she remembered from a street that was only a kilometer from her house. She remembered the way from here on, and decided what she would do: she would sprint the distance from here to her house, and hope that she didn't get so wet that she'd be scolded for not taking an umbrella.

She ran as fast as she could command her legs to take her. Just as she was beginning to feel tired from her sprint, a few huge, icy drops of rain began to go splat on her back. The rain soon became a harsh downpour, harder than Rika could ever recall seeing. _So much for not getting scolded_, Rika thought to herself. But her legs suddenly ached from the day's walking. A sudden coldness came over her, and her skin was covered in goosebumps. She urged her feet onward, thinking, "The sooner I get home, the sooner I can take a hot bath and get out of these wet clothes!" But her strength ran thin, and she very soon felt too exhausted to continue…


	22. Arrival 22

Chapter 22:

**W**anderlust might be just another response to evil: it is denying fear of the unknown any handhold on one's soul.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Ash and Agumon's chat was just getting good when it started to rain. Fortunately, Agumon still had Tai's mini-umbrella, and was holding it over himself, Tai, and Ash. Tai wasn't looking very well. He was still unconscious, and his face was pale. But he was still breathing, at not too quickly a speed, and, if Sora and Kari came back soon enough, then Tai would be fine for sure.

Ash was just explaining pokéballs to Agumon when the two heard loud footsteps. They looked, and Ash saw what looked like Misty's silhouette, running their way. The girl had flaming red hair---or, more to the point, _dripping_ red hair. If this was Misty, then she had lost her backpack since last they met. And these weren't the clothes Ash remembered Misty wearing when he last saw her. Ash waved to her, and she waved back.

"One of your friends?" Agumon asked.

"Looks like it," Ash answered. "Is there anything dry for her in one of those backpacks? She looks like she's been run over by an aircraft carrier!"

"There are ponchos and blankets in the bags, and we brought them away from the camp in case anyone we'd meet would need them."

"Misty looks like she qualifies," Ash answered, pulling his hood up and standing up to meet Misty.

Misty's face was still shadowed, as the light from the streetlamp came from behind her. She was breathing very heavily and was hunched over, shivering. She stopped at the bench, put her hands on the armrest, and leaned on the bench. She stood there, letting the downpour beat upon her back, getting the overexertion worked out of her system.

"Misty, what on Earth happened to you?" Ash asked. There was no answer; it was as if she couldn't hear him at all, or, if she had heard him, she wasn't listening.

Ash set his hand on her back and ushered her onto the spot where he had been sitting, in the shelter of Tai's umbrella. He sat down next to her, fished a blanket out of one of the backpacks, and covered her with it. He called Cyndaquil out of his pokéball, only to find that it was Quilava instead of Cyndaquil. He had Quilava curl up on her lap to warm her up. After a minute, Ash asked her, "Any better?" She nodded. Ash asked again, "Misty, what happened to you? Where's Togepi, and what happened to your backpack?"

The girl looked up, and this was the first time Ash had gotten a good look at her face. "My name is Rika, not Misty," she said. And the girl wasn't Misty: her build, height, and hair were the same as Misty's, but her voice and face were decidedly different.

Ash scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry, I thought you were someone else." There was an awkward pause.

Rika looked at Agumon and her face took on a surprised expression. "Is that your digimon?" she asked Ash.

"No, he doesn't belong to me."

"Then is this guy in my lap yours?"

"Yeah, but he's not a digimon; he's a pokémon."

"Pokémon?"

"Uh, it's a long story," Agumon admitted. "But what's your story?" he asked.

Rika was afraid to be rude to these strangers who had brought her out of the rain, so she answered, "I…I wasn't expecting to be out this late or this far away from home, but it looks like I am. And I…I think I got hit by lightning."

"Wow. Would you even be alive if you were hit by lightning?" he asked.

"I don't know. But one second, it's just starting to rain, and the next, there's this bright flash, and then I wake up in a park, and there's hardly a cloud in the sky."

"Hmm…weird. Sounds like what happened to me," Ash thought aloud.

"Huh?"

"One second, I was out in the middle of nowhere, and then I saw a bright light, and then I wake up in this city. I've been wandering around for hours, trying to find my friends. I---mistook you for one of them."

Rika wondered what was to become of her. She didn't feel like she had the strength to continue, but she knew that, since she hadn't been who they thought she had, she shouldn't be getting the treatment they were giving her. So she soaked up all the warmth she could for as long as they allowed her to sit there.

Ash noticed that she'd been breathing heavily, and so he gave her a few swallows of water from his canteen.

"Thanks," she said between deep breaths.

"No problem."

Rika kept sitting there, waiting for them to say something to the effect of, "Well, you have someplace to go…you'd better get there," or some other polite way of saying "get out of here; you're not the one we're looking for." But that polite dismissal never came: they let her sit…and sit…and sit. After a while, Rika fell asleep from her exhaustion. Ash asked softly, "Do you think we should wake her up?"

"Not yet," Agumon answered. "She looks like she needs a good rest. But since she's probably being missed, we should wake her up in a little while."

"Okay." So they waited a half an hour and then woke her up. "We were afraid someone was expecting you, so---"

Rika stretched. "How long was I asleep?" she asked.

"About half an hour. How're you feeling?"

"Better than before, thanks. I…guess I'd better be going. My mom and my grandma are probably worried sick."

"I bet they are," Ash answered. He handed her the poncho he'd had draped over his lap to keep his jeans dry. "Your parents would probably want you to wear this."

"Thanks."

"Are you sure it's safe for you to be walking alone? I mean, I've been attacked by weird digimon ever since I got here."

Rika swallowed. It then occurred to her that she had an option that hadn't occurred to her before: if Renamon wasn't dead, she could call Renamon with her digivice. So she pressed a few buttons on her D-Arc and, within minutes, Renamon showed up. But she was different from before: her long, lavender-colored gauntlets had been replaced with a pair of spiked bracelets, and the whirl patterns on her legs were gone.

Rika asked, "Renamon?"

"Rika, you called me?"

"I---I'm kind of lost."

"So am I. I don't recognize anything around here."

"I think home is less than a kilometer from here. I've heard that digimon are everywhere, and some of them are dangerous."

"I understand."

Agumon fished out of a backpack a taller, second poncho. "No need for you to get any wetter," he said to Renamon

"Thanks…" Renamon was unaccustomed to wearing clothing of any sort, but she decided to get used to it, at least for the time being. It was better than a wet pelt.

They hurried off away from the bench just as an ambulance was coming to pick up Tai. Ash stood up and helped the paramedics with a stretcher. "What took you guys?" he asked.

"There was hardly a doctor in the hospital!" Kari answered. "There were children and patients, but almost no doctors. We finally found one and some paramedics."

"Good to know," Ash said.

Kari asked, "Uh---will you be coming with us to the hospital?"

"I might as well. Hopefully, I can find some of my friends on the way there, and it's getting late. It'll be dryer to sleep inside the hospital."

The Ichijoujis were left with a lot of unanswered questions: what was going on? Why were they children again, and what had messed up time so much? They'd asked their neighbors, who were all affected in similar ways: people had randomly been hurled into old age and youth, and even into nonexistence: in one house, the only people Ken and Davis could find were several skeletons. The skeletons were lying in bed, sitting in chairs, and one was clutching the television remote. The horror that had taken them came without warning and while they had been going about their everyday business.

Tina and Youngdramon weren't as melancholy as the rest: Yolei had, of course, forced Tina to stay inside the house, so she never saw the horrors that her parents and Davis had seen. She and Youngdramon got to know each other, and, the more they found out about each other, the more it seemed appropriate for them to be partners: they both were fun-loving pains in the neck whose personalities had turned them into a nightmarish duo capable of mass destruction via pranks.

Finally, the lack of answers was too much for Yolei to bear: she called a family meeting (which Tina was excluded from) and discussed what should be done about the situation.

Ken pointed out, "The datacube must have something to do with what's going on, but we can't use it here. We need to find a working computer."

"There isn't one in town," Davis answered. "We've checked everywhere, and nobody has electricity."

"Then there's only one thing to do," Yolei thought aloud. "We go to another city and hope there's power there."

"Do we go to St. Paul?" Ken asked.

Yolei shrugged. "It's closest."

They called Tina downstairs to explain their decision, and she yelled back from her room, "I'm not dressed yet!"

"What're you doing?"

"Finishing off my Digidestined outfit!"

Yolei groaned. "We have something more important to discuss down here!"

"I'm almost done!"

"How long will it be?"

"Two minutes, maybe."

It was more like ten minutes. She came down the steps wearing a pair of rugged-looking overalls (a pair that seemed to have had some novice stitch-work done on the front pocket), a white, long-sleeved blouse, a tannish-green beret, her green rubber gloves, and her black rain boots. To top it off, she had decorated her cheek with a red butterfly using face paint. "That's your Digidestined outfit?" Davis asked. "Don't you dare ever call me geeky again!"

"Hey, your hat doesn't match Veemon!"

"I told you before: I don't _wear_ a hat!"

"But you're supposed to wear a hat! Your hat _always_ has to match your digimon, doofus!"

"It's Doofus, not Davis!" It took a moment for the reality of what he'd just said to sink in. Half not believing it, he asked, "Veemon, did I really just say that?"

"Sounded like it, yeah."

Tina chuckled. "Whatever you say, Doofus. Anyhow, we figured out that Youngdramon's armor form's color scheme would be whatever her digi-egg's color is. And her digi-egg is yellow, so…" she took her beret off her head, put it in her back pocket, and removed her yellow rain hat from her pocket. "Digi-armor, energize!" she said in demonstration. "And check this out!" She opened up the front pocket of her overalls, and Joey stuck his head out. "I stitched plastic on the inside of the pocket so that the petrolatum wouldn't stain the overalls. This has the perfect place for Joey to sit!"

Davis couldn't help but snicker at how revoltingly cute this was. "Well, while you were playing dress-up, we had something important to tell you."

"What's that?"

"We're taking a little road trip to St. Paul. We're hoping that there won't be a blackout there, so we can figure out what was on the datacube."

"Cool," Tina answered. "How long a road trip?"

"Just one day. We leave tomorrow."

They left the following morning---or, more to the point, what their clocks told them was about eleven hours after they'd had this discussion: the sun still hadn't risen after more than nine days.

They arrived in St. Paul, only to find that the city was almost deserted. They stopped in front of a computer shop in the hopes that they would be open and that they'd have power. The door wasn't locked, but nobody was in the store. There was no power in the shop, either, so they tried a hardware store to see if they could find a natural gas-powered electric generator. They found one, all right, but the store looked like it had been abandoned for years. There was dust on everything, and the hinges to the door were so rusty that they had to use Veemon's Vee Headbutt attack to get into the store. They took the generator back to the computer shop and ran one of the computers to see what was on the datacube.

It was an image of Gennai, saying, "There are creatures from an unknown world on Earth. We do **_not_** believe that it is the work of the Dark Ocean; the Dark Ocean planet has been destroyed by what we guess is a natural disaster from their universe. But we do not know where the creatures _are _from. These creatures are not native to Earth or the Digiworld as far as we know. But the creatures aren't the only problem: time has been completely thrown off course. In fact, time where I now stand recording this message moves so quickly in comparison to the rest of the planet that, by the time you are listening to this, I will be dead. There are other effects, as well: there are shifting fields of time moving around the world like storm fronts, and, speaking of, changes in time mean changes in gravity, and gravity being reversed or neutralized is having drastic effects on the world's climate. The time fields are pulling water out of the Earth's oceans and into the atmosphere, and we project that cloud cover will have increased dramatically by the time you hear this.

"We do not know if you will even be alive to listen to this. Some people here have been hurled into old age by this anomaly, while others have been reduced to childhood. We do not know why or how this is, but we hope that at least some of the Digidestined are left alive to counter this threat. We have left this datacube near the house of Ken and Yolei Ichijouji in the hopes that at least one of the four Digidestined there will find this.

"On that note, we know that the daughter of Yolei and Ken will have the gene that allows her to interact with the digivice. For this reason, we have selected a volunteer digimon and a digi-egg for her, and have constructed this digivice.

"One last thing: we, the humans that have subspace matrices and keep track of the Digiworld, are not all present in this room. We do not know where the others are, but hope that they are alive, and working towards your benefit. This is all we know." That was all that was on the datacube.

Yolei looked at Ken with a gulp. "Creatures? What creatures?"

There was a grinding noise beneath the floor. "Everybody, OUT!" Ken yelled. They dashed through the door and looked behind themselves. There were three metallic birds flying out of the store. They began firing bolts of lightning at them from out of their talons.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: E-gull (Denkimo)

Real Name: Ilto-tor-agnei

Caste: Y'tr-Nut'ka

Special Attacks: Jero Dra, Kiro Koutato

Modes: One

The E-gull fires bolts of electricity out its talon, sometimes powerful enough to stun or kill a human being. It can eat, and it flies through the air searching for any kind of edible prey, including humans. It is another of the breed of shock troop that is designed to attack the interiors of buildings, subways, and other places where humans and digimon would think would be safe from enemy attacks. It is not the strongest of its class, but it is no laughing matter.

Yolei held up the digi-egg of love and yelled, "**Digi-armor, energize!**"

"**Hawkmon, armor-digivolve to…Anserimon, the fountain of love!**" Anserimon's form was similar to Halsemon's: it had brown feathers and four legs and was covered with white, winged armor, but there was one difference: she had a cannon sticking out her chest.

"**Veemon, digivolve to…Exveemon!**"

"**Wormmon, digivolve to…Stingmon!**" Stingmon's form was different: he had a green and black striped tail with a metallic stinger on the end of it. Besides that, there seemed to be no differences.

Tina looked down at Youngdramon. "Ready to give it a spin?"

"Hit me!"

Tina switched hats and triumphantly yelled, "**Digi-armor, energize!**"

"**Youngdramon, armor digivolve to…Gryllotamon, the tunnel of adventure!**" Gryllotamon was an insectoid digimon, covered in yellow, metallic armor that almost made her look like a robot. She had a pair of mandibles that seemed to be her weapons of choice.

"Let's see how these new forms handle!" Stingmon shouted. "Lightning Spike!" Purple heat rods extended from his arms. He reflected the e-gull's shot away from himself with the rods.

"Tempest Wing!" Anserimon fired red lasers out her eyes at another of the e-gulls. It dodged under.

"Time to test this form out!" Gryllotamon crowed. "Laser Mandible!" Her fangs glowed green, and she leapt up and smashed one of the e-gulls to bits.

"Rapid Vee Laser!" Exveemon shouted. A deluge of yellow, boomerang-shaped shots fired out of the big "X" on his front side. The second e-gull didn't last long under that fire.

"Time to see what this tail is good for!" Stingmon yelled. He pointed the metal stinger at the final e-gull. "Stinger Missile!" A missile shot out at the e-gull, but the e-gull fired a bolt of lightning at the missile and destroyed it.

"Laser Mandible!" Gryllotamon shouted again and fired a green beam at the e-gull. It went down.

"So much for them," Tina thought aloud.

"Doesn't say much for **_them_**," Gryllotamon answered, pointing with her fang at the troop of saberstrikes that were looking at them with hungry eyes…


	23. Arrival 23

Chapter 23:

**S**tark changes from one place or time to another tend to make one more aware of diversity. Depending on the circumstances, that may be a _bad_ thing.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Hare looked over his shoulder, away from the discussion they were having about the slagster that had attacked them. "Huh? Who's that?" There was a girl with red hair like Misty's inside the rain, and she was wearing a clear poncho and a khaki jacket. She didn't seem to be running, but she was moving very quickly towards them. Walking next to her was a tall, fox-like creature with golden-yellow fur…_beautiful golden-yellow fur_! Before he knew it, Hare was staring at her with hearts dancing around his head.

The girl's and the fox's speeds returned to normal as they exited the rain zone. To the eyes of the Monsters, Ghenki, Misty, and Holly, it looked as though the colors that the two approaching figures wore suddenly got darker as they exited the rain zone. They seemed shocked to find that they weren't being rained on and looked up at the sky. "What on earth…?"

"Excuse us," Misty asked.

Rika looked Misty over. She seemed to fit the description of the girl that boy was looking for. "Your name wouldn't happen to be 'Misty', would it?"

"It is. Why do you ask?"

"There was a guy back there who was looking for you. He mistook me for you because we both have red hair and look alike from a distance."

"Oh? Who was this guy?"

"I didn't get his name. He was wearing a blue raincoat, and he had on a red and white baseball cap. He was sitting on a bench taking care of an unconscious guy and an Agumon."

Hare asked, "Agumon? What's an agumon?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but thought better of it and just said, "A little dinosaur." The girl's gaze shifted to the wreckage of the slagster that had just attacked. "What happened to that thing?"

"It was attacking us, so we trashed it, chi," Moochi answered.

"It was _attacking_ you?"

"And the strange part is, it had no actual chance of winning against all of us. One hit was all it took to stop it, but it attacked anyway," Golem continued.

The girl's eyebrow went up. So there really _were_ wild digimon attacking---hold on a sec! _These_ digimon were outside a digital field. So what was going on here…? She didn't exactly enjoy the feeling of being around digimon outside a digital field, even with Renamon by her side, so she said, "Excuse us…we have a ways to go yet tonight," and left the team of Monsters and Misty to continue her trek to her home.

They also left Misty and the others with a lot of questions. Misty thought over what she knew: Ash was looking for her and _he_ couldn't move, so _she_ had to find him. She reached into her backpack.

"What're you looking for?" Ghenki asked.

"My rain jacket."

"You're going in there?"

"Yeah. That boy she was talking about, Ash, is waiting for me in there."

Barely coming out of his hormone-induced trance, Hare asked, "You're sure that's such a great idea? I mean, it seems to be coming down pretty hard in there. Besides, when you stuck your hand in, it hurt! Imagine what agony you'd be in if what happened to your hand happened to your entire body!"

"That other girl and her pokémon came out okay," she answered.

"But what if it's only a one-way thing? I mean, maybe only hurts when you're going from this side to the other side."

"There's only one way to find out…." She tightened her hood strings, took a few steps into the rain side of the wall, and waited. There was no pain…in fact, the only bad things about it were that it was a lot darker, a few degrees colder, and she was getting soaked. "See? No problem!" she said to the others. They didn't answer…and there was something strange about the way they looked, too: it seemed almost as if everything had gotten darker when she crossed the wall; the others and the street surrounding them looked a few shades closer to black than they had before. And the way they were moving looked slower than normal. She asked, "Guys? Are you okay?"

The answer slowly came out of Ghenki, in a low, stretched-out voice: "Wwwwwhhoooooaa……! …Shhhhheeee'sssss aaaaalllll ssssppppeeeeeddddyyyyyy!"

"Huh? I'm not speedy; you're slow!"

"Wwwweeeee…ssseeeemmmm…ssssllllooowwww…ttttooooo…yyyooouuuuuu?" Hare asked.

"Yes!" Misty moved out of the rain side of the wall and began walking towards them. "You seem very slow, and it was darker on your---side---" her sentence trailed off as she saw the lighting around the Monsters return to normal and she saw the rain side of the wall get a lot lighter, too. "Hey, all of a sudden, it got brighter!"

"What are you talking about?" Holly asked.

Misty was just as confused as Holly was about this. "It seems like time is going faster on that side than on this side."

Hare thought about it. "Hmm…I've got it! Your hand hurt because blood was getting pumped more slowly to it there than on this side! And everything on the other side of the barrier looks brighter than it really is to people on this side because light is coming from that side five times faster than normal!"

"And, for every minute I spend here, five minutes have gone by for Ash! I need to stay in that side! Togepi! Come here!" Togepi had been playing with Moochi for the past few moments, and was sorry he had to leave the game. Misty picked him up and put him inside her backpack. "You'll be drier in here," she said, pulling the drawstrings shut. Looking up at the team of monsters, she said, "I have to get moving," as she hoisted the bag over her shoulder.

"Wait," Ghenki said. "Should we come, too?"

"If you don't mind being soaking wet," she answered.

"There's a solution to that," Golem said, extending his arms over the group.

Misty shrugged. "I don't mind if you come---if there are other creatures like that one you just nailed, then it'd be safer for me if you came with me. But I don't see what _you_ gain by coming along."

"I don't see what we lose," Holly answered.

"Well, we'd lose time, but going to that side would make up for the loss," Hare pointed out.

Misty smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

Davis and Ken looked at each other. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"DNA digivolve?"

"Right on!" The two clapped their digivices together, so that their screens touched.

"**Exveemon!**"

"**Stingmon!**"

"**DNA-digivolve to…Paildramon!**"

Unlike Hawkmon and Veemon, who had both been changed by whatever had messed up time, Paildramon didn't look different from what he'd looked like in their previous adventure. He pulled his cannons forward. "Time to show these creeps what we're made of! Desperado Blaster!" A volley of missiles went flying at the saberstrikes. Some of them dodged while others succumbed to the attacks.

Anserimon shouted, "I'll hold this one still!" She flew above the saberstrike.

The saberstrike looked up at her, roared, and fired his sonic cannon at her. "Garem Non!" he shouted, aiming his tail up at Anserimon.

Anserimon dodged underneath the saberstrike's attack and shouted back her answer: "Aqua Cannon!" A heavy spray of water blasted out of Anserimon's cannon and pinned the saberstrike to the ground. She shouted, "Quick! Paildramon!"

"Desperado Blaster!" The saberstrike was down.

"Hey, you only left me the last one!" Gryllotamon complained. "You guys are so rude!" She charged her mandibles so that they glowed green.

The saberstrike growled. "Hin Tarr!" A pair of yellow heat rods extended from the saberstrike's claws.

"So that's they way we play it, huh?" Gryllotamon and the saberstrike got into an energy sword fight, a lot like in Star Wars, except that there were two heat rods to each opponent. Finally, Gryllotamon got sick of the battle and shouted, "Acid Bombardier!" A spray of green liquid flew in the saberstrike's face. It did little more than blind it, but even that was enough: Gryllotamon landed a hit on its head, and the battle was over.

The digimon and humans alike were breathing heavily, but they'd won. The digimon regressed back to their rookie forms, and the digi-eggs of love and adventure shot into the hands of their human owners. Tina and Youngdramon dove into each other's arms. Thrilled by the battle, they both shouted, "You did it!" "Wa-_hoo_!" "Unbeatable!" "Ka-_pow_!"

Davis rolled his eyes. "Will you shut up? If there are more---_things _like the ones we just destroyed, then we'll want to be quiet so they won't hear us!" Turning to Yolei, he asked, "What now? What do we _do_ about a bazillion evil monsters roaming the streets?"

"We get any people left to safety, that's what," Ken answered. Ken noticed Yolei rubbing her temples in frustration and worry. "What is it, honey?" Ken asked.

She sighed. "It's Tina. Look at her; she's having a blast." Tina was a few meters away, still chatting with Youngdramon about how well the battle had gone. Both of them looked overjoyed.

"What's wrong with that?" Davis asked.

"She's always had this wanderlust, this desire for adventure, and I'm scared that it'll get her killed. Especially now that she's a Digidestined. I---…" Yolei paused to collect her feelings and try to translate them into words.

Davis cut in, "Every mother worries about her kids. Just give her time to learn the ropes, and she'll be fine. You and Ken were great Digidestined, and she is what you are."

Yolei sighed. "Davis, I'm going to have to ask a huge favor of you."

Davis could tell she was feeling very distressed, so he answered, "Anything at all."

"Ken and I can't keep our eyes on Tina 24/7. And if there's going to be a huge, bigger-picture problem like we had with the fight against Malomyotismon, then we might need to split up, so…could you look after Tina?"

"WHAT! You want me to look after that little brat!"

"You said anything, Davis," Yolei sobbed.

Davis gulped. "Did I really say that, Veemon?"

"Sounded like it, yeah."

Davis slapped his hand on his forehead. "I'm dead."


	24. Arrival 24

Chapter 24:

Any person without hope is basically nuts.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Ash was almost falling asleep in the ambulance because he was so tired. He forced himself to wake up as the ambulance screeched to a sudden stop, and then suddenly started again and began swerving all over the place.

"What's going on?" Gatomon asked.

"Some digimon is shooting at us!" the driver shouted.

"Shooting?" Ash asked. He wrapped his fingers around Charizard's pokéball. He burst out the doors of the ambulance and let Charizard out. "Charizard, I choose you!" Charizard jumped out of the pokéball and roared. Ash shouted up to him, "Charizard, use Dragon Rage to stop that evil---well, whatever-it-is." It looked like an Egyptian idol crossed with an evil robot from Star Trek. (A dangerous combination, if nothing else, and I think that it is something else: one of my crazier ideas. But, continuing...) Charizard flew in low to attack, but the eye-dhole fired some wicked-looking, green lasers out its two, gemstone eyes: "Grimn Fota!" Charizard veered off his bombing run to avoid the blasts.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Eye-dhole (Metōru)

Real Name: Igno-tor-nizo

Caste: Var'ka

Special Attacks: Kin Dar, Int Dar, Grimn Fota, Kellaar Don'al

Modes: one

The eye-dhole is one of the stranger ator. Like the ferra-series, it is a man-eater, and shovels food into its mouth with its red, clawed tail. Its slow, stupid-looking gait makes it difficult to take seriously and a sitting duck for an air strike, but its firepower is a serious threat to ground forces. Out its eyes, it can fire all three of heat rays, freeze rays, and repulsor beams. Unlike other breeds of menace machine, its outer structure is not metallic. Its surface is covered with an armor layer of rock to make it look all the more strange and intimidating.

"What is that thing, anyway?" Ash asked to himself. He pulled out his Pokédex.

"Pokémon unknown. No available data."

"Great. Charizard, try Dragon Rage again, bombing him from the top!" Charizard swooped down, and the strategy worked. Oddly enough, the eye-dhole was smashed to bits, but it didn't vaporize. "Thanks, Charizard," Ash sleepily said and called him back into the pokéball. He climbed into the ambulance and said in between yawns, "I got him, whatever he was."

"What happened?" Kari asked.

"I wanted just to knock it out, but that wasn't the way it happened. I think I…_killed_ it."

"…On _purpose_?"

"I didn't know that Charizard's attack would destroy it," Ash sheepishly answered. "But at least we're safe." Ash rested his head on the stretcher where Tai's legs weren't taking up space. "Ugh! I'm sorry, but I'm so tired that I can't…"

"You should have a rest," Kari answered. "You look like you need it. But what was it? A digimon?"

"Can't be: you said digimon disappear when they die, and this one never disappeared. Its rubble is still sitting there in the street."

"Was it a pokémon?"

"If it was, it was one I've never seen before, and one that Dexter didn't know anything about, either."

"This just gets worse and worse," Kari mewed, rubbing her temples. "And you're right, we do need a rest."

"Hmm…" Ash almost immediately fell asleep.

Misty shuddered at how creepy everything was in the city…and at how chilly the rain made the air around them. "Isn't it just a little spooky that there are no people in a city this big?"

"More than a _little _spooky," Hare answered.

Ghenki wondered, "What do you think made them leave? A plague? War? Food shortage?"

"The fact that it rains all the time?" Misty offered

"I'd bet that it has to do with the fact that we just passed through a barrier where time moves about five times more slowly on one side than the other," Hare thought aloud.

"Could be," Holly agreed. "In fact, you're probably right. If I knew that there was some time barrier a few blocks from _my_ house, I'd move to another town."

They heard sirens up ahead. "An ambulance?" Ghenki asked.

"Looks like it," Misty said.

"Oh, no!" the driver shouted.

"What is it?" Kari asked.

"There's a whole gaggle of new creatures dead ahead, and there's no other way to get to the clinic!"

"Whoa, boy!" Kari and Gatomon looked at each other.

Gatomon sighed. "As much as I hate the rain, it looks like we have no choice!"

Kari held up the golden egg of light and yelled, "**Golden armor, energize!**"

"**Gatomon, golden-armor digivolve to…Quadrigamon, the chariot of light!**" Quadrigamon looked more like an angel than anything else, and she was covered in Greco-roman-looking golden armor, and strangely shaped wings extended from her shoulders. On her arms were circular shields, and in her hand was a flaming whip. "Hopefully, this'll be enough to scare them away…"

Rika had blundered: she and Renamon were lost again. Rika was exhausted from walking all day, and the rest she had gotten from sitting on the bench with that Agumon and those other two boys was wearing off. She collapsed into a park bench beneath a red, sunset sky. A chilly breeze bit her on the cheek, so she pulled up the hood of her poncho and hoped it would help her keep a little bit warmer. She leaned onto the back of the bench and thought. She was too tired to go on and had no clue where she was. Every phone she'd tried failed to work. She felt doomed.

All of a sudden, she realized that her stomach felt awful. She hadn't eaten since lunch, and she had been walking around for several hours. The lack of food for that day caught up with her, and she began to feel horribly nauseous. She thought to herself, _What's__ the deal? I'm not sick; why should I feel like throwing up? _But she _did _feel like throwing up, and she couldn't fight the nausea, as hard as she tried. She leaned forward and threw up what little stuff was in her stomach.

Renamon was shocked. "Rika, are you all right?"

Rika coughed. "I think I need to find some place with antacid," she groaned. "I feel like I---" her stomach rudely interrupted her, and she began heaving again. There was nothing left for the stomach to throw up, but her stomach was trying anyways, which made Rika feel all the more sick.

"Rika, we need to get you to a doctor."

Rika shot back, "I don't need some---" but her stomach interrupted her again. The awful feelings of weakness and nausea overcame her shell of vain pride. "Okay, maybe it won't hurt to---" she couldn't stop vomiting long enough to get a sentence out.

Renamon picked her up. "Now, where would we find a doctor…?"

Rika barely got in between vomiting spells, "Phone…directory!"

Renamon set Rika down on the bench again and raced to a phone. She looked up hospitals in the directory and found one not far from there. She tore the page and the map out of the book, picked Rika up, and raced as fast as her legs would take her to the hospital's address, hoping that Rika would make it there.

Renamon was dying to whisper words of encouragement and hope to Rika, but she knew that Rika had a shell of inflated, unsteady pride that Renamon would damage if she tried to act like a beacon of hope to her. She knew that Rika would push her away, and that was the last thing she wanted. So she held her tongue and kept running…

Mimi, Michael, Suezo, Tiger and Brock were all tired, worn-out, and scared. They had taken refuge in the basement of Mimi's apartment building, along with a few families and a few individuals who were also living in the building.

Brock was holding a boy who had been orphaned in the attack. He was crying for his mother, but not so loud so that the creatures above ground would hear. The fact that it was raining outside was a help; the noise of the rain would at least partly mask any sound they made.

There wasn't much conversation; the sight of monsters attacking people mercilessly was too much to take in. Mimi had spent a few minutes crying into Michael's shoulder. There was hardly a dry eye in the basement, in fact.

Suezo whispered to Tiger, "So, this is what all-out war is like, huh?"

"Looks like it, yeah."

"You think we're safe in here?"

"Probably. Maybe not; I dunno."

There was a short pause.

Mimi, just drying her tears, decided that it would help for her to talk with someone about all of what was going on. "We've been in fights before."

"There are lots of wars like this?"

"Not at all, no. In fact, our world has seen peace for almost a decade."

"Hmm. Then…were there wars before?"

"Sort of." Mimi recounted the entire story of what had happened with Malomyotismon and Apocalymon. It was a long story, but they had time to hear it.

"Wow. Sounds kind of like what we went through with Moo."

"Who's Moo?"

Tiger explained, "He was a tyrant that was trying to build an empire on our world. ---A very dangerous tyrant. We were freedom fighters who tried to oppose him, and we were about to beat him once-and-for-all, too, right before something picked us up and dropped up here."

Mimi sighed. "Why is it that there's nothing but problems here?"

"I don't know. But we have to hold on," Michael said, rubbing her back.

"What's there to let go of?"

"I don't know. But we'll find out if we let go, and that'll be finding out the hard way."

Brock set the child who had been crying down; the child was asleep. Brock fished his raincoat out of his bag and wrapped it around the child to keep him warm. "Maybe we'd have some answers if we knew what those things up there were."

"Right now, I don't care about answers, I just wish we had some food," Mimi said.

Brock pulled a few cans out of his bag and said, "I don't have a way of cooking these, but there is food."

Mimi sighed. "Thanks. I'm famished."

"So…what do we do now?" Brock asked.

Michael thought about it and answered, "We're all tired, and we'll need our strength if we're going to need to fight again. We should try to get some rest---and hope that those things up there don't find us."


	25. Arrival 25

Chapter 25:

**S**ome say it is wrong to fight at all, but _not_ fighting at one time can be just as wrong as fighting can be at another time.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Since monsters were swarming in the city, the Ichijoujis were heading back to their small-town home. Although it wasn't very pretty there, at least it was safe. They had found a few children who had been wandering the streets in St. Paul, and they had the children packed along with themselves in the car, hoping that they could be accommodated for once they arrived.

"So…what're we planning to do about this latest caper?" Tina asked around the head of a seven-year old girl she was holding in her lap.

"It'd be nice if we could hook up with other Digidestined," Yolei answered. "And I wouldn't exactly call hundreds of man-eating monsters a 'caper'. You need to be serious, Tina."

Davis cut in, "What about Mimi? Isn't she still in New York?"

"We could try them, but how would we get there?" Ken asked. "Especially if the cities are all swarming with monsters?"

"Last time we had to travel a long distance, we had Paildramon digivolve up to Imperialdramon," Davis thought aloud.

"Hold on, Davis. It took one of Azulungmon's subspace vacuoles to digivolve up to Imperialdramon. We don't have his vacuole anymore."

"Maybe so, but it also takes Gatomon's tail ring for our digivices to use as a lens to DNA digivolve, and we seemed to be able to DNA digivolve. If we have Gatomon's tail ring, then maybe we have the vacuole back, too."

Ken shrugged. "Okay. We'll give it a try once we get back home and find these kids a place to stay."

After a short pause, one of the children piped up, "Hey, mister! Isn't it against the law for you to be driving before you're sixteen?"

"Relax. I know what I'm doing."

It had been nine hours that they had spent in the basement of that building. Michael and Mimi were both asleep, still sitting on the floor, leaning against each other. Brock felt pangs of jealousy at the sight of this tender scene. He kept thinking to himself, _I shouldn't be jealous! It's wrong to feel jealous about her! Besides, she's a little old for me, anyways. Yep, forty-five is definitely out of my league…_

Brock was just beginning to fish more canned food from his backpack when he heard a humming noise. He shook the child he'd been holding the previous night and kept a hand over his mouth so he wouldn't make a sound: if that was another weird monster, he'd want to be careful. And it _was_ another weird monster: it was a moth-like creature with a pair of glowing, green eyes. Upon seeing the people, digimon, and Monsters in the basement, it emitted a shrill, unbearably loud screech.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Humbug (Bagutoru)

Real Name: Ilto-tor-oni

Caste: Unuyon Var'ka To'rel

Special Attacks: (None)

Modes: one

The humbug has abilities somewhere between those of a rookie and in-training digimon. Its only means of "defense" is to make an earsplitting noise. Besides hurting attacker's ears, the noise can attract other nearby menace machines. It is used mainly for reconnaissance, finding human beings to hunt for other ator, surveillance, and, on occasion, ambush attacks: two humbugs can combine to form an E-gull, which has noteworthy attacks and is a man-eater.

Brock covered his ears. After a moment of considering the situation, he realized that the scream could attract other creatures. He called Vulpix out of his pokéball. Vulpix couldn't hear Brock's commands over the noise of the humbug, but he knew it was a good idea to destroy the metal bug that was making that noise. "Good work Vulpix."

The noise had been way more than enough to wake Mimi and Michael up. "What was _that_?" Michael asked.

"It was another monster. That's all that's left of it," Brock answered, pointing to the scorched bits of metal that were left of the humbug. "I don't know what it was trying to do, making that noise."

"I think I do," Suezo yelped, looking at one of the basement windows. There was a saberstrike looking in the window with hungry eyes.

"Hin Tarr!" A pair of yellow heat rods extended from its claws, and it slashed at the window. But it was out of luck: it couldn't squeeze through the window's tiny space. It roared at the people inside and kept trying to squeeze in. It was slowly eroding itself a bigger hole to crawl through in its attempts, so Brock yelled, "_Let's get out of here_!"

"Which way do we go?" Michael answered, running out the door along with the rest of the crowd.

"If it's away from that thing, I'm satisfied!" Suezo shouted back.

They ran to the upstairs of the building, hoping that the saberstrike wouldn't follow them. It didn't get the chance; it wasn't able to squeeze through the hole in time to track them. The entire group was breathing heavily in a dark, empty room.

Mimi looked around. There was nowhere except the floor to sit. But there was some good news: there was a window in the room. And, since they were several stories up, it would be safer to open the window. Mimi pulled the blinds up and looked out. "It stopped raining and the sun is finally out," she sighed. She slid the window open and took a deep breath. "It's good to get some fresh air again."

"No kidding," Michael agreed, joining her at the window. "I could do with a little less---LOOK OUT!" He and Mimi dove away from the window as a blast of purple energy took a bite out of the wall and the floor of the building.

"**Tanemon, digivolve to…Palmon!**"

"**Koromon, digivolve to…Betamon!**"

The two digimon and Vulpix would up their attacks. The strangest thing appeared to fight them: it looked like a solar panel with four rocket engines and a laser cannon attached.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Luftwaffle (Rufetewāpā)

Real Name: Nne-tor-atet

Caste: Var'ka To'rel

Special Attacks: Yore Dar

Modes: one

Luftwaffles are solar powered menace machines, which put them at a disadvantage: the sun is hardly ever in the sky, thanks to Earth's damaged climate. The Luftwaffles will become dormant when the sun isn't in the sky, stacking themselves across a building's side to catch what light they can. The Luftwaffle has two "heads," and, on each, there is a beam cannon and a pair of eyes. The Luftwaffle is unlike most other ator in that it is intelligent: it knows how to work with other luftwaffles to herd around humans and digimon and eliminate them. It also knows to keep away from other, stupider ator. It can siphon energy from some beam attacks to replenish its own power cells.

"Chlorophyll Ray!" Palmon yelled. A ball of green light appeared in the blossom on her head and shot out at the luftwaffle. The luftwaffle didn't seem to be affected as the beam smacked its solar panel.

"Vulpix, try Dragon Rage!"

"Betamon, use Beta Slugger!"

The two wound up and fired. They scored a pair of direct hits, and the luftwaffle went flying out from the building and went smash on the ground.

Michael and Mimi got up. Michael went to check on Betamon's welfare, while Mimi walked closer to the opening to see if any more monsters were swarming outside. She said, "I'm not sure it's safe for us to stay here if we're going to---" Just as she had been saying this, the floor beneath her gave way, weakened by the luftwaffle's attack, and Mimi fell forward towards the street twelve stories below…


	26. Arrival 26

Chapter 26:

**R**eality is one thing, what people suppose reality might be is another. This is not a bad thing: you wouldn't like this story to be reality, for instance.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Kari and Quadrigamon jumped out of the back of the ambulance, ready to attack.

The Monsters weren't sure what was about to happen: here was another creature that they hadn't seen the like of before, and a human was with her. The two sides stood facing each other for a while, neither one knowing what to do, and standing outside indecisively is annoying when it's pouring rain.

"Well…?" Quadrigamon asked.

"Well…?" Hare asked back.

"Well…?"

"Well…?"

"Well…?"

"…Whose turn is it?"

"Why did you just jump out of the ambulance, ready to fight?" Holly asked.

"We were afraid we'd have to fight," Kari answered.

"Why?"

"We've had some…_unpleasant_ encounters with creatures we've never seen before," Quadrigamon answered.

"Really? So have we."

"No kidding?"

"Yeah," Ghenki went on. "One attacked us, and it looked like a dragster with a robot sitting up in the cockpit."

"Ours looked like a cross between an Anubis idol and a walker from Star Wars. About this tall," she said, holding her hand a little more than a meter off the ground.

"Did you get him?"

"Turned him into fish tank gravel. What about your dragster friend?"

"Scrap iron."

There was some silence at that point. "So…was there any reason for all this worrying and getting ready to fight?" Quadrigamon asked.

"Doesn't look like it; no," Hare answered.

"Then I'm getting _out of the rain_!" Quadrigamon spat. She and Kari jumped into the ambulance and the driver peeled rubber.

Unfortunately, right before Kari shut the door, Misty caught a glimpse of Ash inside the ambulance, asleep. And, right after Kari shut the door, Misty yelled, "Hey! That's my friend in there!" That presented a problem. Misty immediately ran after the ambulance, and the Monster crew followed her, not knowing anything better to do.

The driver asked Kari, "Who were they?"

"Oh, they were harmless."

"You're sure? They seem to be following us."

"What? Then you'd better go faster, or they'll catch up! If they're really attackers, then they probably waited until we were off our guard!"

"Easier said than done; they're riding on that Golemon!"

And, at the same time, Misty shouted to the Monsters, "If there are all these evil robots swarming the city, then those people might not be who they say they are, and they might be kidnapping Ash!"

"They're going faster, so that might be it!" Golem yelled back. "I don't know how long I can keep up this pace!"

Michael gaped as he saw Mimi slip off the buckling floor. But he knew what to do: "**Betamon, digivolve to… Seadramon!"** Seadramon flew down beneath Mimi, and before she knew it she was sliding down the length of his serpentine body to come to a complete stop at about his neck.

She shook her head and collected herself. When she opened her eyes, there was a troop of saberstrikes and canis-tors staring right back at her. Mimi gulped.

"No kidding," Seadramon agreed. "Ice Blast!" The barrage of ice struck the canis-tors and saberstrikes before they got a chance to fire, and froze a bunch of creatures in place and swept the rest off their feet--- literally.

The remaining canis-tors dropped their fuel tanks and stood side-by-side in pairs. The canis-tors said in unison, "**Vorre-tor-goludai****, noh kreshnaiona djom… Vorre-tor-eliish!"** And, in flashes of white light, each pair became a single, new, lion-like monster: cougore.

"What are those?" Mimi asked.

"I don't know, but it looks like they just DNA-digivolved, or something!"

"You think those things might be some kind of digimon?" Mimi wondered aloud.

"Garem Dar!" the cougores yelled, firing sonic pulses at Seadramon.

Dodging the blasts of sound, Seadramon yelled, "Well, whatever they are, they aren't friendly! Ice Blast!" Seadramon's attack blew one of the cougores into a canis-tor's fuel tank. The fuel tank exploded, knocking out a few cougores.

Brock, Michael, Tiger, Suezo, and the other refugees were descending the side of the building on Steelix's back. "Those tanks must have some kind of flammable fuel in them!" Brock yelled. "Vulpix, try to hit them with your flamethrower!"

Vulpix blew streams of fire at the tanks, and Tiger used his lightning attacks on the tanks, too. The blasts of the fuel containers plus Seadramon's onslaught were enough to demolish all the saberstrikes and cougores.

"Great work, Vulpix," Brock said, calling him back into his pokéball. "So…what now? I don't think it's safe to stay in that building."

"We could try hiding in the subways," Mimi suggested.

"It's as good a chance as any," Michael agreed.

"This might be a dumb question, but what're subways?" Suezo asked.

"Tunnels that run underground and have train systems running through them. They carry people around the city."

"Oh. Ah---which way to an entrance to the---'subways'?"

"Over there is the closest," Mimi pointed. But, unfortunately, there was a flotilla of luftwaffles coming from that direction. So Steelix and Seadramon began making tracks in the opposite direction. But the luftwaffles were much faster, and they were gaining. As if to accent their evil, a storm was following the luftwaffles, with flashes of lightning licking the cloud's jaws, like a wolf going in for the kill…

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Canis-tor(Kanisutōru)

Real Name: Vorre-tor-goludai

Caste: Var'ka

Special Attacks: Darwawo Non, Kiro Kon

Modes: one

The canis-tor has about the power of a rookie digimon. It carries a cargo container on its back that carries fuel, electrical energy, and other forms of power storage. It can be used to refuel other ator or Linonian machinery. The canis-tor is a man-eater, and it can store the energy it gets from consuming people in its container. The canis-tor can jettison the container to gain better speed or agility, and must jettison it in order to combine with a second canis-tor to become a cougore.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Cougore (Rōtestube)

Real Name: Vorre-tor-ellish

Caste: Nut'ka

Special Attacks: Garem Dar, Yon Kiro Kon

Modes: one

Cougore is a man-eater, and is quick on its feet, agile, and strong. It has roughly the abilities of a champion-level digimon. It has a sonic cannon on its back, the same model as saberstrike's cannon. Canis-tors are programmed to drop their payloads and combine to form cougores if they are met with a high-level digimon opponent. Canis-tors will also combine if they spot a group of humans or digimon that is big enough to merit a large assault; as the cougore is more agile and more effective in fighting large groups according to the standard assault protocol.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Oh, I'm sorry! Did you think I was _done_ after I wrote Endgame?

If you're hoping for a speedy end to this series, don't hold your breath. The way this is going, it'll be even longer than Endgame. And I have barely scratched the surface so as to what's in store for the Digidestined, the tamers, the pokémon trainers, and the Monster Rancher crew. Speaking what's in store for them, I know that the Seventh Egyptian Plague happening to Tai, Sora, and Kari was pretty weird, but there's an explanation for that.

Anyhow, I figure it's about time someone did something like this. I mean, you'd think _someone_ would've gotten the idea to bring pokémon, Monster Rancher, and all three seasons of digimon together. And the only way to do that is with a parallel universe plot twist and a time anomaly plot twist. And, when combining those two in a story, just about anything can happen with a plot. I don't think they've even done anything _that_ daring with Star Trek before.

So…what do you think of this new breed of robotic creatures I've come up with? As of right now, I have in mind about fifty different species. I know, I know…there are hundreds of pokémon, digimon, and Monsters, and fifty is nothing next to those big numbers. But I'm planning to add more ator to that number. I'm not planning to hit numbers as high as the big triple-digits; I don't expect to need that many. But hey, it could happen.

Speaking of ator, I have to come up with a whole new language to describe their attacks. If you look closely at their attack names, you'll see that there are patterns. Garem Dar (cougore's technique) and Garem Non (saberstrike's technique) are both sound attacks, so you can tell that the translation of "garem" means something like "noise" or "sonic". The way I'm creating the language, the words are---at least partly---based on adjectives and nouns. There are some exceptions to that, considering that this language's vocabulary is limited, but you add a suffix to an adjective or noun to make a verb, and so---

Hold the phone! What am I doing, here? I'm making this even longer than it needs to be, and dispensing information that the reader doesn't want! Okay, I'll shut up now.


	27. Arrival 27

Chapter 27:

**I**t is strange: there are many things in life that cause worry, but worry isn't a beneficial emotion…_at all_.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Rika was barely conscious, but thanks to how rotten she felt, she almost wished she were unconscious. And, as Renamon carried her to the hospital, every step Renamon took shook her stomach even more, and her stomach definitely did not need to be shaken. Rika moaned.

Renamon suddenly came to a stop.

"Are we there yet?" Rika asked.

"I certainly _hope_ this isn't our final destination!" In front of them was a row of hungry-looking eye-dholes. "Int-Dar!" one shouted. It wasn't difficult for Renamon to jump out of the way. But the place where the eye-dhole's shot hit the ground turned into a pool of ice, and made Renamon glad she was so quick.

Renamon wondered what was safer: to set Rika down and fight off these creatures, or to run for it. She made the mistake of hesitating to decide: "Grimn Fota!" A pair of green beams knocked Renamon backwards and sent Rika flying.

As Rika flew head-over-heels through the air, she thought in her head, _This__ is it…after all I've gone through in life, I get to die._ But, in a small, subtle way, she found death a relief…

She felt a pair of furry, muscular arms catch her and stop her fall. But they were too big to be Renamon's arms, and she felt some cold, smooth metal against her arm…she looked up at the face. It was Gargomon. She heard Henry's voice say, "Rika! What happened to you? You look awful!"

"We're not going to look any better if those stone digimon get a say in it! What are they, anyway?"

Henry held up his D-Arc. "I can't get a reading on them!"

"Huh, boy!"

One shouted, "Grimn Fota!" and fired at them again. Gargomon put his machine gun arms in front of his face to shield himself, and felt his body knocked backwards as he skidded along the ground. His feet never left the ground and he was unhurt, but Gargomon knew it was a powerful attack.

"Man! These guys are tough!" Gargomon commented. "Gargo Laser!" His arm cannons whirred around and fired at the eye-dholes. It didn't take more than a few moments of firing to demolish one of them, but the other five still remained.

"Kin Dar!" But the shot wasn't aimed at Gargomon: it was aimed at Henry. Gargomon dived and knocked Henry out of the way.

"Gargo Laser!" he yelled, still on the ground and clutching Henry to his chest. Another eye-dhole bought it. "You know, Henry, I'm getting sick of these things."

"Ditto." Henry pulled a card out of his pocket. "**Digi-modify: upgrade, activate!**" Gargomon charged his laser cannons, but something unexpected happened: the eye-dholes began walking towards each other, and, in a brilliant flash of light…

"**Igno-tor-nizo****, noh kreshnaiona djom… Igno-tor-avil!"**

The four eye-dholes became a pair of Headhuntors.

"Uh-oh! Did those things just digivolve?"

"Looks like it!"

The Headhuntors let out a loud war cry: "YIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYI!" and, with their spears pointed forward, rushed at Gargomon and Henry. The tamer and his digimon ran the other way, but the Headhuntors were catching up…

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Headhuntor

Real Name: Igno-tor-avil

Caste: Var'ka

Special Attacks: Dra Kou

Modes: one

This is an intimidating, albeit a stupid, species of ator. Although one is easily outwitted, its defense is strong, and its spear can penetrate just about anything. It is a man-eater, but, as the name implies, only eats the head. The rest of the human body is discarded and left as propaganda. The Headhuntor's programming was primitive and probably under-budgeted. It will dance in a circle, slowly and continuously turning 360° until it sees a target. It will relentlessly pursue its target until the target is either destroyed, or the target escapes. If anything happens that the Headhuntor cannot understand, it will scratch its head, and then go back into dance mode.

The two serpents were moving as fast as they could to get away from the luftwaffles that were chasing them. They considered splitting up, but that would probably be more dangerous than fighting the luftwaffles.

Fortunately for them, weather was on their side: a bank of clouds blocked the sun, and, for a reason that they couldn't understand, the luftwaffles stopped, attached themselves to each other in a square, quilt-like pattern, and draped themselves over the south side of a building.

Looking over her shoulder, Mimi asked, "What're they _doing_?"

"Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that they're solar-powered?" Michael asked.

"I wouldn't rule that out. But I still don't think we're safe; we need to find another place to hide."

"Um…is that a subway entrance down there?" Suezo asked.

Mimi looked. "Yes, it is. It's worth a try; let's go."

Seadramon regressed back to Betamon, and the entire bunch crowded into the subways, right before it began to rain again. Strangely, it was freezing under the streets. They had to bring out whatever they had to keep themselves warm with. Brock unrolled his sleeping bag and crawled in feet first, clutching the boy he'd recovered and hoping that the bag would provide enough warmth for the both of them.

"You still have him with you?" Mimi asked.

Brock nodded. "His parents were both killed in the attack. He has nowhere else to go."

Mimi sighed, letting a tear trickle down her face. Michael put his arm around Mimi. "I know how you feel, Mimi. Relax. We'll get through this."

"Will we? Those---_things_ are **_eating_** people! What if we're next?"

"Mimi…" Michael paused, wondering how he could console her. He sighed. "Okay. I admit it: we could be next. But we've got to try to hold on."

She sighed. Her breath shook, but whether this was because she was sobbing or because she was cold, Michael didn't know.

Brock figured that both might be true. He took the raincoat he'd wrapped around the child off from his shoulders and offered it to Mimi and Michael.

"Thanks. …I don't know why it would be so cold down here…"

"Me either."

"Is it cold?" Tiger asked. (He couldn't tell because his fur was too thick.)

"Yes, it is."

Tiger yawned and walked in a circle three times before lying down. "So…what now?"

"…I don't know..." Michael was as much at a loss as everyone else.

Brock cut in, "You know where the nearest clothes store is? It'd be nice if I could get this kid a jacket, or something. And he'll need one if we're going to be staying down here."

"No kidding. And it'd be nice if we could find something to eat," Suezo added.

"We'll take a look outside after it stops raining," Michael suggested.

"Actually, _before_ would be better," Brock thought aloud.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if those things are solar-powered, then they won't be able to attack while the sun isn't in the sky. If we wait until it stops raining, then they might be back online." Brock picked up his bedroll and dragged it to where Mimi and Michael were sitting. He unzipped the bag, set the boy between Mimi and Michael, and spread the unzipped bag over the three of them. "Could I have my coat back? I'm going to risk an errand out there."

"Is it safe for you to go out on your own?"

"I _won't_ be on my own. I have five pokémon with me. They'll be enough if anything goes wrong."

"You're sure?"

Brock knew that he had to find food, and he also knew that Mimi didn't need any more stress. So he just insisted, "Look, don't even worry about me." Of course, Mimi _did_ worry---the entire situation had "worry" written all over it, and both she and Brock knew it.


	28. Arrival 28

Chapter 28:

**O**ftentimes, complicated situations get worse before they get better. Don't believe me? Let me tell you about the time I was on a breakaway, floating down the Niagara River.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Myotismon groaned. His minions had taken him into a restaurant to get him out of the rain, but it wasn't wet weather that ailed Myotismon: it was the sun. "That boy drained me of my power with his two digimon friends and their…solar… attacks…." Myotismon broke into coughing.

"What do we need to do, boss?" Mummymon asked. "What do you need to get you back on your feet?"

"You need to find me a few human girls. If I can tap into their blood, I will recover."

Mummymon and Arukennimon looked at each other and nodded. "We'll find a few humans for you." They left the building and Arukennimon jumped into the jeep. "Let's get going---Mummymon, what are you just standing there for?"

Mummymon was reluctant to get out from under the restaurant awning and get wet. "Can't you bring the jeep a little closer to the canopy?" he begged.

"Um…let me think about that." Arukennimon pointed at Mummymon and a string of webbing shot out her finger. The string attached itself to Mummymon and Arukennimon yanked him into the jeep with it. "Getting wet is not high on our list of problems. Now, come on."

"Oh, all _right_…!" Mummymon put the pedal to the metal and they drove off in the jeep, in search of human quarry. They saw a strange sight as they drove along: there was an ambulance going at top speed, with a Golemon in hot pursuit.

"Hey, I thought I saw a couple of girls riding that Golemon!" Arukennimon yelled.

"But why would they be running after an ambulance like that?" Mummymon asked.

"Who cares? Stop the car."

The jeep screeched to a halt. "We should be going after them; why did you have me stop the car?"

"Because you need to climb into the backseat. I'm driving."

"Huh?" Mummymon crawled back. "But…what did you have me do that for?"

"Because you need to shoot at them." Arukennimon opened the moon roof.

Mummymon screamed in childlike terror. "OO! Shut the moon roof! I'm getting drenched!"

"Oh, _quit whining_!" Arukennimon slammed down on the gas pedal, making Mummymon jerk back in his seat.

"Ooooooohhhh!" Mummymon groaned. "This is turning out to be such a _wretched_ day!"

"_SHUT UP AND BLAST THEM, ALREADY!_"

One of the Headhuntors was going after Gargomon, and the other was after Henry. All four were running as fast as they could go, with Henry in the lead, followed by a Headhuntor, and then Gargomon and his fan were following in single file. Even worse, the four of them were running constant laps around a building.

"There has to be a way to stop this!" Gargomon thought aloud.

"I think I have just the thing! **Digi-modify: hypersonic, activate!**"

"But what good does catching up to your Headhuntor do?"

"The upgrade card should still be in effect! You should still be strong enough to pick him up and throw him at his buddy!"

Gargomon did as Henry suggested, and both Headhuntors were reduced to two javelins and a pile of gravel. Both heroes were breathing heavily. "You okay?" Gargomon asked.

"A little worn out, but I'm not hurt. Are you---hey, why aren't you getting their data?"

"Because there's no data to get!"

"Weird. But did you get hurt?"

"No. But I can't say the same for Rika and Renamon, though. What do you think we should do about them?"

Renamon was just regaining consciousness. She looked like she'd been run over by a dump truck, and felt that way, too. "I was taking Rika to a hospital. I have the address and map here."

"Can you still carry her?" Henry asked.

"I don't think so."

"Looks like it's up to me," Gargomon thought aloud. He hoisted Rika's limp body over his shoulder. "Will I have to carry you, too, or can you walk yet?" Gargomon had said this in a tone that wasn't very polite.

"**_Gargomon_**" Henry hissed through his teeth.

"I'll be able to make it," Renamon said, wiping herself off.

The four of them began moving. "One question, Henry…where do you think these monster-things are coming from?"

"No clue, Gargomon. But then I didn't know where the digital fields were coming from, either…I wonder if there's a connection?"


	29. Arrival 29

Chapter 29:

Complicated situations sometimes have simple solutions.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

Misty shivered: she and the Monster crew were no longer in the shelter of Golem's arms; it was more like they were sheltering Golem's arms. To be more precise than that, they were hanging on for dear life and getting showered with so much rainwater that they looked like they had just fallen into a pool. Misty felt fortunate to have a rain jacket on, although her lower half wasn't feeling the benefits. Misty hoped that they were catching up, but, because of the way she was clinging to Golem's shoulder, she couldn't see in front of them and had no idea how close they were to the ambulance. But she had a clear view of what was behind them: "Hey, is that jeep following us?"

"L-l-l-oo-oo-oo-k-k-k-s-s-s l-l-l-i-i-i-k-k-e i-i-i-t-t-t, y-y-y-e-a-a-a-h-h-h!" Ghenki answered. He was on the part of Golem's arm that was doing the most swinging and getting the most bounced around.

"And what's that thing that that man is holding?" Holly asked. (She had never seen a gun before in her life.)

"It's a rifle!" Misty yelled. Ghenki would've shouted it in unison with her, but the shaking was too much for him. A white, lightning-like beam sliced the air, barely missing Golem's feet.

"Who's shooting at us?" Golem asked.

"I don't know, but he's not stopping!"

"What do we do?" Hare yelled. "Can we fight them from here?"

Moochi yelled, "M-m-m-oo-oo-oo-ch-ch-ch-i-i-i C-c-c-a-a-a-n-n-nnon!" He returned Mummymon's shot, but his aim wasn't very good, considering that he was clinging to Golem's other hand. But he was giving the jeep's driver something to worry about; the jeep began swerving this way and that to avoid his shots.

The hospital was coming into view. The ambulance stopped in front of the hospital, and Ash, a pair of girls, Quadrigamon, and a handful of paramedics jumped out. Quadrigamon was poised to fight.

Golem's attention was more focused on the jeep than on the ambulance. He was beginning to have trouble dodging the shots.

Kari looked. "Wait a minute! They weren't running to attack! If they'd been running to attack, they'd have shot us by now! They're running from whoever was in that jeep!" It was at this point that they heard a loud, "Snake Bandage!" and another bolt of lightning shot out from the jeep's window at Golem.

"That's _Mummymon_!" Quadrigamon snarled.

"I'd hate to think that _he_ could be back," Kari thought aloud. "Anyway, we'd better help them!"

"Right!" Quadrigamon flew upwards, over the jeep. Her circular shields glowed yellow. "Golden Hubcaps!" She swung her arms in a throwing motion, and a pair of yellow energy discs shot from her arms at the jeep. The jeep swerved again.

"This isn't going well, Mummymon!" Arukennimon said as she swerved the jeep.

Mummymon silently agreed, and wondered if he wouldn't have more elbowroom if he fired out the side window instead of the open moon roof. He rolled down the window and stuck the entire upper half of his body out the window and continued to fire. Quadrigamon shot at them again, and Arukennimon swerved the jeep, hurling Mummymon out of the window and smack into a puddle---so much for keeping dry!

Thinking her companion was still with her, Arukennimon spat, "Forget it, Mummymon! There _must_ be easier girls to catch than this!" and drove off as fast as the jeep would go, leaving Mummymon to fend for himself.

Mummymon gathered his senses and looked at the group that was slowly closing in.

Ghenki looked Mummymon over. "An mummy armed with an assault rifle?" he asked. "I'm going to have a tough time taking this guy seriously!"

"You'd _better_ take him seriously," Kari answered. "We fought him before, and I can tell you he's nothing to sneer at!"

"I'm a lot more than that!" he spat. "Snake Bandage!" He shouted, firing his rifle at the ambulance.

Kari gasped. If the bolt hit, Sora and Tai would be history.

Quadrigamon leapt for the shot and reflected the bolt away with her shields.

Mummymon snarled. "And who are _you_!"

"My name is Quadrigamon," she answered. "And your name is mud!"

"Ha! Snake Bandage!" he spat, hurling a strip of his own bindings at her. She was instantly entangled.

"I see what you mean by nothing to sneer at," Ghenki thought aloud. "Time to show this 'Mummymon' guy what _we_ can do!" he shouted to the Monsters.

"Right!" they all answered. Hare, Ghenki, and Moochi dove at him, with their hand-to-hand attacks ready to roll. Without a thought, Mummymon hurled some more bindings at them and left them in a wet heap on the pavement.

Moochi slipped out of the heap and tried a more widespread attack: "Cherry Blossom Blizzard!" Mummymon shielded his face from the blast. It did a disappointingly small amount to damage.

"What was _that_ supposed to do?" he spat.

"…_Chi_?"

Ash decided to try his tricks on Mummymon. "Heracross, I choose you!" The huge bug jumped out of the pokéball and sized Mummymon up. "Heracross, try tackle attack!" Heracross dove in low, but Mummymon just tried the same trick at wrapping up his opponent, and Heracross found himself completely immobilized. Just as Mummymon was firing his rifle at him, Ash called him back. "I'll need something that can avoid those ropes…I know! Pidgeot, I choose you! Try for a quick attack!" Pidgeot dove at him from a high angle, and had knocked him for six by the time he'd had one coil of bindings off from his arm. Mummymon staggered. "Not so hot after all, is he?"

"Don't underestimate him," Kari cautioned. She was trying to untangle Quadrigamon.

"I'll trash him!" Golem yelled. Ash, Kari, Misty, Quadrigamon, and Pidgeot watched with wide-open mouths as Golem's body split into pieces and the pieces swirled around in a "Tornado!" Golem's attack hurled Mummymon into the air and he flew so far away that he wouldn't be a problem. Golem reconstructed himself over the group of Monsters that were lying in a wet, tangled heap on the ground.

"Whoa," Ash thought aloud. "I wouldn't like to be in a fight with _that_ guy."

Untangling himself, Ghenki asked, "Who? Mummymon, or Golem?"

"Either, but I meant Golem," he answered.

"Ash!" Misty cried. "Are you okay!"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Uh…no reason."

"I should be asking that question to you, Misty! You look awful! How did you get so drenched? Why not go inside if it's raining like this?"

"Because I was chasing after you in that ambulance!"

"On Golem's back? ---That _is_ his name, right?"

"_Yes_, on Golem's back!"

"How did you get him to carry you all this way?" Ash asked. Then, something occurred to him: with a chuckle, he thought aloud, "I knew you could be bossy sometimes, but I never thought you could talk anyone over twelve feet tall into letting you ride on his back in the rain!"

Misty rolled her eyes. "Let's just get inside the hospital, already! ---!" Misty was shocked to see that there was a _huge_ door for the opening to the hospital, one large enough for Golem to get into. "Why on earth is there a door that _big_!"

"Oh, Kari explained that to me. That's for some of the bigger digimon."

"Digimon? What're you talking about?"

"It's a long story. But tell your friends to come in, too. They look even wetter than you!

Arukennimon had been driving for a few minutes, and she said, "You know, Mummymon, I'd have thought you would have started to complain about being wet by now. You're being so quiet, it's scaring me."

There was no response. Arukennimon stopped the car and looked for Mummymon. She didn't find him in the car. "Now, where could he have gone to?"

Right on cue, Mummymon came flying out of the air and smacked the pavement near the car.

"What on earth are you doing out there? Get back in here!" she spat.

Mummymon felt horrible, but he was in no mood to argue with Arukennimon. He knew what arguing with her could be like, so he kept his mouth shut and crawled back in the jeep.


	30. Arrival 30

Chapter 30:

**W**orry is sometimes proven right, but one can never profit from it.

The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)

They had just squeezed Golem into the hospital waiting room when Ash turned around and let out a loud. "Hey, who's that? More company?" There was a trio of figures dashing though the rain towards the hospital. At first, he didn't recognize them. But then he remembered the fox-like creature with yellow fur that he'd seen that girl with a few hours earlier. He waved to them, and they waved back. There was a boy running with the creature, wearing an orange vest and holding an umbrella over his head, and behind him was a green and white, stocky digimon with the girl over its shoulder.

The three arrived, huffing and puffing, and stood in the waiting room drip-drying along with the Monster crew. "Man!" Gargomon spat. "I don't know where Renamon got her poncho, but I'm going to have to get one of those in my size!" Gargomon set Rika down, regressed back to Terriermon, and shook off his pelt.

"Hey!" Holding his umbrella between himself and the spray that was coming from Terriermon, Henry shouted, "I _really_ need to teach you some manners some time!"

"What? What did I _do_?" Terriermon asked.

"Ooohh! Never mind!"

"What happened to her?" Ash asked.

"We found her unconscious in the street. She was getting attacked by these things that looked like wolf statues!"

"Did they have red tails and shoot green rays of light out their eyes?"

"Yeah, they did. What were those things?"

"No clue," Ash answered. "But I ended up having to fight one, too."

Henry shook off his umbrella. "Well, one thing's for sure, my D-Arc couldn't identify it, and Terriermon couldn't pick up its data, so it's not a digimon, whatever it is. And I---" Henry's mouth dropped open as he saw Sora from Season 1. He was absolutely speechless.

"What is it?" Ash asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"There is just…no…_way_!"

Ash looked behind himself. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "Listen, whatever it is, I don't see it. I think we need to get that girl you found to the doctor's office right away."

"And I think the doctor should examine me, too!" Henry added, still gaping at Sora.

Brock had been away for a few hours, and they were more than worried. But there was nothing to be done; Betamon was still tired, and Mimi didn't care to go out in the rain. Nor did she know where to look for Brock, even if she did go. But, true to his word, Brock showed up with a cardboard box in his arms.

"Finally!" Mimi cried. "What took you?"

"I ended up looking in a shopping mall. I didn't meet any unfriendly monsters, but it took me almost two hours to get there and back, and to find some edible food. Most of it had gone bad in the stores."

"Huh? But you were gone for four hours!"

"What?" Brock asked. He itched the back of his neck. "My watch must be slow, then."

"The important thing is that you're back, safe and sound," Michael cut in. "And that you got this food. Thanks." Michael nudged Mimi. "I told you we'd be okay."

Mimi shook her head. "I'll admit it'll be good to have something to eat. I'm starved."

"Me too," Michael added. The six of them dug in to the bread, cold meats, and cheese that Brock had salvaged from the store.

Brock put a coat that he'd found in the mall on the child, and it finally occurred to him to ask the child what his name was.

"Ben," was the simple, quiet answer Brock got.

"Don't worry, Ben…we'll find you someplace."

"Someplace warmer than this?"

"Sure," Brock answered, patting the child on the shoulder.

"Boy am I grateful for that meal," Mimi sighed, wiping her face off. "I don't think we've eaten since last night!"

"I don't think we have, either," Brock agreed. "I think it's time we try to get some rest."

"You're right," Mimi answered. "Should somebody keep watch?"

"I will," Tiger answered. "I've been asleep since Brock left, so I'd be the most rested."

"Thanks," Michael said, pulling a blanket out of the box Brock had lugged in. They all curled up and tried to get some sleep---with limited success: after a short while, they heard a whirring noise beneath the floor, and a drill stuck up from the ground. A creature that resembled a spider with an auger on its back climbed up out of the hole.

"Hey, everyone! Hark up!" Tiger yelled.

The creature pulled its drill back into its body and the drill was replaced with a cannon that promptly began taking pot shots at Tiger: "V'ver Dra!"

"Blizzard!" Tiger shouted, blowing a stream of snow at the augore. The augore dodged and continued firing. It landed a hit and knocked Tiger back. It went for Suezo next, but Suezo's teleport put the augore at a disadvantage. Suezo reappeared behind the augore and simply tipped it over, and it couldn't move. It was essentially helpless.

Suezo grinned. "That thing's not so tough, after all!"

He spoke too soon: the augore shouted, "**Ckinei-tor-wadrii** **noh**** unukreshnaiona djom… Ckinei-tor-mbili!"** The augore became a pair of smaller, two-legged creatures armed with ray guns.

"Uh-oh!" Suezo murmured…

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Augore (Supaidagan)

Real Name: Ckinei-tor-wadrii

Caste: Y'tr-Nut'ka

Special Attacks: V'ver Dra

Modes: two

The Augore is one of the few ator that can bore underground. While tunneling, it uses its legs to push against the walls of its tunnel to propel itself forward. It must always surface with its drill facing straight up; otherwise it would be largely immobile. It cannot attack while it is in dig mode; it must retract its drill into a subspace pocket and replace the drill with a beam cannon before it can attack. Its firepower is roughly equivalent to that of a champion or armor digimon, so any bystanders had better beware if it does manage to transform into artillery mode. Another weakness is that one can immobilize it if it is on the surface and tipped on its side.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Droll Bit (Ashinchu)

Real Name: Ckinei-tor-mbili

Caste: Y'tr-Nut'ka

Special Attacks: Yonunu Dar

Modes: one

Aptly named, the droll bit is a relatively weak menace machine. Its defense is small, and its sole armament is a laser gun. It walks about on two feet and is pretty clumsy. Clearly not meant to last, its sole purpose is to attack once an augore penetrates a subterranean hiding place. The tiny drill bit carried beneath its body serves no purpose until two droll bits combine into an augore.


End file.
